


The Sphinx of Beacon Hills

by Guede



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Stiles, Bestiality, Cock Warming, Comeplay, Crack Treated Seriously, Creature Stiles, Cultural Differences, Dildos, Dom/sub Undertones, Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent, Eggs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forced Orgasm, Full Shift Werewolves, Intercrural Sex, Interspecies Romance, Language Barrier, Light Bondage, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Miscommunication, Multi, Nesting, Nipple Play, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Outdoor Sex, Past Abuse, Polyamory, Rimming, Rough Sex, Slow Build, Werewolf Biology, Werewolf Culture, Wingfic, Worldbuilding, Young Chris Argent, Young Peter Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:49:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 96,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5351270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a sphinx, and he’s winging his way to visit his buddy Scott when a storm drops him in Beacon Hills, the craziest, crankiest, <i>coldest</i> place ever.  And somehow, he ends up with a bunch of werewolves.</p><p>Note: Bestiality warning is because the version of sphinx here is lion-shaped from waist down, and I don't know how else to tag that.</p><p>2/10/16: Added one PWP chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is straight-up fantasy, but in terms of technological levels, I'd analogize to the late medieval period.

Stiles is actually on his way to the warm, sunny, wide-open southwest canyons when a gale blows him off-course, dropping him somewhere in the thickly-wooded, misty, freezing north. The place is full of cliffs and mountainsides, as well as giant pines that might as well be hanging ‘spear here’ signs on them, and he beats his poor primaries all to rags twisting and dodging them. By the time he finally gives in and ducks below the treeline, he is tired, wet, and he swears he can feel icicles forming under his belly.

And the damn trees, since they’re mostly evergreens, don’t offer a lot of protection from the rain. Swearing and rattling his wings, he stomps through the woods, looking for a…a cave, a fallen trunk, hell, he’ll take a really big bush at this point. Last time he ever takes up Scott’s invitation for a visit, he—oh. _Oh._

Well, at least they have a Nemeton. It looks a little scraggly—somebody’s been hacking at one side, and the leaves are withered and rusty, inhabitants around here probably haven’t been feeding it properly—but it’s full-grown with broad, comfortable-looking branches, more than enough to support a nest. So Stiles casts about, spooks a couple deer, bleeds them out over the roots (and has a little snack, what, he’s hungry), and then he clambers up into the tree. He’s too exhausted to do much more than weave some of the more pliable branches into a half-assed roof, and then he settles down for a nap.

When he wakes up, it’s still cold and damp, but at least it’s not actively raining. He rakes dispiritedly at his hindquarters and then his hair, and then climbs up to the top of the tree and spreads his wings for a look.

They’re in pretty bad shape. He could try and keep going, but he’d probably be flying like an overweight chicken, and if another storm caught him, he’d have to resort to going by ground. Or he could resign himself to a detour, weed out the damaged primaries, and wait for them to grow back in.

Stiles irritably shakes the water off his wings, then braces his hind feet against the trunk, grabs two sturdy branches with his hands, and rears back to let out a roar that shivers off the rest of the water. It should also let any other sphinx within range know he’s around. Not that he thinks it’s likely, given the location, but hey, you never know. Maybe there’s a flock of them and they have a nice, snug cave system all fitted out, with a guest room they’ll be happy to lend him.

Fifteen minutes later, still alone, Stiles stalks out of the Nemeton and goes off to see what he’s dealing with.

It’s a very large forest, plenty of game. Couple towns dotting the outskirts, though they seem to be based on trade or some other non-agricultural activity, since he doesn’t see a lot of growing fields. They’re near a mountain pass so he guesses that makes sense. He steers clear for now, and sticks to the trees. Some large streams run through the woods, and the willows along their edges give Stiles good nest-making materials, and a few patches of plants with fluffy seeds provide the start of bedding. He talks a flock of birds into helping him out gathering the stuff, and then retreats back to the Nemeton.

The poor tree really is in terrible shape. Stiles has to put off actual nest-making for a good half-day, just pruning the thing; he ends up shifting away his wings to get them out of the way and by the time he’s done, he’s got enough cast-off branches to make a little fence around the tree. And then he’s hungry again.

He circles around till he finds what he thinks is an elk—it’s a lot bigger than the deer from before, anyway—and eats half of it right where he brings it down, then drags the other half back for dinner. He pegged up the skins from those deer to the surrounding trees and used some crushed berries to draw tanning sigils on them. They won’t be as nice and soft as hides tanned by hand, but hell if he’s going to start a whole cottage industry just for a layover.

Anyway. Stiles adds the elk skin, then pops up into the tree and starts weaving a proper nest. It’s slow. He gets a lot of splinters. He’s done this twice before, only because his father made him (because be prepared for no caves, Stiles, with how you manage to get lost), and he’s admittedly a little bit of a perfectionist, so he keeps yanking the branches apart and redoing them.

He’s on something like his fifth try when he hears and smells somebody not-game wandering around. Stiles didn’t really get a good look at the technology level of those towns, but he’s not an _idiot_ , whatever the state of his navigational skills, so when he comes down, he comes down in full sphinx glory. Brazen wings, big fangs, whipping tail.

“Rawr!” he says, and the man screams and runs off.

Also, he drops a couple things. Stiles folds his wings away and pads over to inspect them: waterskin, rough-looking but with a reasonably well-crafted metal top; metal knife; long, non-recurved bow. A moment of whimsy strikes Stiles and he takes them all and scouts around till he finds a human path through the woods, and then he carefully stacks them at a crossing in the path, with the bow stuck into the ground so it stands straight up. After some thought, he also scratches a couple runes into the bow. Nothing fancy, just a little riddle about meat (he’s getting hungry again).

Then Stiles goes back to building his nest. He works his ass off getting that thing watertight, and by the time night falls, he’s bushed again. He nibbles some leftover elk, then crawls up and sleeps.

Tries to sleep. Watertight doesn’t mean warm, or comfortable. The plant fluff he’s collected keeps puffing away from him, or getting in his nose and mouth, and when dawn breaks he’s cramped, bleary-eyed, and half the damn fluff’s been knocked out of the nest.

Stiles sighs and collects it all again, and then checks his hides. Still not dry. He goes hunting for some food while he considers what to do, and since he’s going that way anyway, checks the trail where he left that man’s stuff.

The things are gone, and in their place is a fresh-killed sheep. For a couple seconds Stiles ponders this, while eating sheep liver, and then he uses the sheep’s blood to scribble some more runes on the ground. It isn’t his best language and mostly he just has memorized riddles, but apparently that’s what they use up here.

He spends the rest of the day trying to make bags out of the deer- and elk-hides. It doesn’t really go that well, although he finally manages to make a sort of sleeping mat. But claws aren’t the all-purpose tool they really should be, and as Stiles curls up for the night he decides he’ll just have to get hold of a needle or an awl.

Third day stuck there, Stiles pulls out the broken primaries and sets them aside for later, and then checks out the trail. There’s a man lying on it.

He’s naked, and bound hand and foot. When he sees Stiles his eyes go narrow instead of wide, and he manages to roll himself over so that he’s on his elbows and knees, facing Stiles, head tucked down low like he’s a fellow predator or something. The rope around his ankles goes to a stake jammed into the ground, which must be pretty deep since he kicks at it with both feet and it doesn’t move an inch.

Stiles is in wingless half-cat mode, which is perfect for sitting back on his haunches and wondering whether he got his runes wrong. “I am pretty sure that I asked for a blanket,” Stiles says.

The man goes still. He’s obviously thinking, not just terrified or angry, but it doesn’t seem like he understands what Stiles is saying. His eyes keep going to Stiles’ claws, which Stiles is absently scratching through the fur on his hindlegs. They’re grey. He’s dirty but he looks like he’s pale-skinned, with either light brown or blond hair. Lean build, probably not that much heavier or taller than Stiles if Stiles were to shift all the way human.

“So…am I…supposed to eat you, or something?” Stiles says. He waves his hand out to the side and the man jerks backwards, making a hissing sound like a snake. Stiles stops, then puts his hand down and the man frowns. “Because I’ve tried human, it’s not really my thing. And all right, this isn’t working. Well, at least one of you likes to think that they know runes, so…”

So Stiles leans over, keeping his eyes on the man. He very slowly redraws the runes he’d left with his finger in the dirt. After an initial flinch, the man settles back and watches. His lips thin and then twist, and then he looks really angry, yanking roughly on the rope binding his wrists and muttering to himself. And he glances at Stiles and he goes all still again.

“I don’t have all day here,” Stiles says. He points to the runes, then to the man.

The man snarls but tucks his head down at the same time. He looks at Stiles again. His throat convulses and Stiles wonders if he’s going to spit or something like that, and then he lets out a disgusted sigh. He nods.

“All right, then. Definitely a translation error.” Stiles looks around them, but the woods are clear. He’s guessing the man hasn’t been out too long, since none of the animals have gone at him—there are bears and mountain lions and Stiles is pretty sure he heard some sort of wild dog howl last night—but that’s probably not going to last.

He stands up, stretches out his hindlegs and back, and then comes over. The man flips himself onto his side trying to get away, pulling his leash as far as it’ll go. And then he falls over again, because Stiles has just slashed through the leash and he wasn’t expecting that, even though he was looking right at Stiles as Stiles did it.

“Well, whatever, come on and we’ll…work on it over lunch,” Stiles says. Then he rolls his eyes at himself. He says that again in Ogham as he pins the man down and cuts through the ankle rope, and then tries Coptic.

The man doesn’t respond to any of that except to just lie there and stare at Stiles. So Stiles doesn’t know a lot of northern languages. It’s not like he ever planned coming up this far.

“Lunch?” Stiles sighs in Greek.

The man suddenly looks attentive. He even says something, although it’s completely incomprehensible to Stiles. Then he gets up onto his knees and pushes the remains of the ankle rope out of the way. He gestures to himself, and then back over his shoulder, and then he shakes his head sharply.

“I wasn’t going to eat there anyway. I mean, I don’t know what you did to have this kind of luck, but…anyway. I can tell by your face that Greek’s not really going to work either, although we’re getting warmer,” Stiles says. He rubs at his hindleg again. “Um, how about Latin? Are you—”

“Food? Me?” the man abruptly says. His accent is atrocious, and he actually says some other stuff in there but where the verb should be is just a bunch of gibberish. It’s like he learned Latin as just phrases and words and he’s sprinkling in a different language in between.

Still, it’s a vast improvement over hand gestures. “Uh, no,” Stiles says. “But food is this way, and I might not feel like leaving you for the animals but I am also not going to put off my lunch for you. This place is annoying enough.”

He has no idea how much of that the man got, but it’s enough to make him relax his guard when Stiles grabs his wrists. Of course, then the man cries out and starts fighting, but a raised hindleg puts Stiles’ claws sufficiently near his belly that he stops.

Stiles can’t hold the man’s wrists and walk on four legs, and if he shifts to two, he’ll have to take a second and shift back to defend them against anything. So he grips the wrist-rope between his teeth and then drags the man off that way. It only takes them a couple minutes to get to the tree, and a good thing because it’s awkward even without the man fighting him.

He does tuck the man under an arm so he can leap the fence, but he lets go as soon as they’re on the other side. “Ugh, definitely got to get you a bath after this,” he says, looking the man over.

The fence is magicked so that the man’s not going to be leaving any time soon, but he doesn’t necessarily know that. But he doesn’t even try to make a run for it. He just lies there in the dirt, and doesn’t even rub off the new dirt crusts he’s gotten, although as Stiles pulls down what’s left of the elk, he does stop staring at Stiles. He looks at the elk and he blinks hard, and then he looks a little less tense, though he still pulls himself into a defensive crouch as soon as Stiles gets near him.

“I know, I know, you can’t eat it raw. Give me a second.” Stiles slices off a couple hunks of meat and sticks them on some spare branches, and then holds them out to the man, who takes them with a half-wary, half-confused look. 

Then Stiles squats down across from the man. He scoops out a little hole in the ground, piles in twigs and leaves, and then shakes out his wings. That gets the man all spooked again and he scrambles back against the fence, but he’s interested enough in how Stiles knocks a spark off a feather with his claws that he crawls back. Although then he just sits there, eyeballing the little fire like it’s a poisonous snake coiled up and threatening to bite him.

“Well, suit yourself,” Stiles says, and settles down to his part of the elk.

He’s halfway through a foreleg when he looks up and finds the man barbecuing the hunks over the fire. The man pulls a stick out, pokes it gingerly, and then sticks his finger in his mouth to suck off the juice. Catches Stiles watching him and goes stiff, then abruptly hikes his still-bound hands at himself. “Chris. Name?”

“Oh! Yeah, I’m Stiles,” Stiles says. He pulls his wings in and comes closer to the fire. “So…what’d you do? Kill somebody? They must really hate you.”

Chris presses his lips so hard together that they almost disappear, then ducks his head and barbecues the hell out of his food. He’s quiet for a few minutes. Then he raises his hands and moves it around with awkward but clear anger. “My father? He…sick. You sphinx, he you your antidote.”

“We’re not antidotes, but I’m guessing you’re actually saying that he thinks I can help him,” Stiles says slowly. He’s guessing that Chris can understand a fair bit more than he can speak. “Well, so this is a weird way of asking me, but—”

“Not,” Chris says vehemently. He pauses and takes a couple deep breaths. His shoulders are shaking, and he almost knocks a piece of meat off when he yanks its stick out of the ground. He rotates the stick in his hands, and he must be seeing something else because he looks like he’d like to throw it as far as he can from him. “Not—ask. He to pay _you_ , you. Shit. You. You…”

“Oh, got it. He’s _bribing_ me,” Stiles says. He puts his foreleg down and winkles a tendon out from between his back teeth. “So. Hates you?”

Chris presses his lips together again. Then he suddenly pulls his shoulders and head back, and looks up at Stiles. He’s grinning and it’s not a particularly pleasant grin, though Stiles idly notes how attractive it is by sphinx standards; rare that you see a human with so many teeth, let alone so white and big. “Yes.”

Stiles shrugs and finishes his meal. He gauges what’s left of the elk, then sighs and puts it away and wipes his hands off on some grass. “C’mere,” he says.

Chris was done eating way before Stiles and he’d settled into silent watchfulness (seemed really interested in how Stiles cracked the bones for marrow), but he starts now. He pauses, then says something under his breath and crawls over to where Stiles is waiting by the Nemeton.

If he wanted to, he could get up and walk. He’s crawling on purpose, and he keeps doing things that don’t make sense, like keeping his flank to Stiles even though that means he’s got to crane around to look at Stiles. It’s not typical human and if he thinks it’s sphinx, well, Stiles would really like to see those books.

He gets back on his knees, and then yelps and falls off them as the roots just in front of him push back the soil, making a round, deep hole in the ground. Water immediately wells up into it. Chris stares at it, then at Stiles. Then he puts his hands out and delicately floats his fingertips on the surface of the water.

“Not danger?” he says.

“What, because it’s a…Nemeton?” Stiles says. And Chris definitely knows _Nemeton_. “Wow, what do they teach you people out here? I’m surprised it wasn’t just grabbing people walking by and draining them. Um, anyway, no, I fed it, it should be good for now. And if it wasn’t, believe me, I can take it out before it could so much as lob an acorn, and it knows it.”

To prove his point, he gets down and swishes his hands through the water, then cups some up to drink. He usually gets plenty of moisture from his kills’ blood and it’s a little weird, just straight-up drinking water, but it seems to put Chris at ease. The man frowns but he shoves his hands into the water, and then bends over and starts scrubbing his face.

Well, at least the people here know about bathing. And that should keep him busy for a while, so Stiles hops the fence again and tracks down another elk.

Definitely wolf territory, he learns during that trip. He spots a couple on a ridge watching him, and then stumbles across some scent markers, so he cuts off one of the elk hindlegs and leaves it behind. Not that they could really hurt him, even grounded, but it’s a little rude to just barge in and start hunting on somebody else’s territory. He might not like this place very much, but that’s no reason to be an asshole.

When he gets back to the tree, Chris has completely washed himself down and also has found Stiles’ cast-off feathers. He’s in the middle of shaving himself with one. Cuts himself when Stiles groans and smacks himself in the head.

“Sorry, I just—wow, I’m slow. Maybe that storm knocked some brains out of me,” Stiles mutters.

The cut on Chris’ neck isn’t serious, but it’s bleeding pretty heavily. Stiles pries off Chris’ hand, pinning him to the tree by one shoulder, and then seals it with a lick. He checks the man’s fingers for damage, and when he doesn’t see any, just grabs another of his feathers. He had them all in metal form so they wouldn’t rot, but he turns this one back so it’s easier to strip the quill. Sticks his claw at the blunt end, makes it metal again, and he’s got a needle.

That makes making those deerskins into mattresses _so much easier_. Although the braided grass he’s using as thread isn’t going to last more than a couple days. “Not that I want to think about being stuck much longer than that.”

“You where?” Chris asks.

He’s done shaving, and come over to watch some more. He looks a lot younger without the stubble—Stiles doesn’t hang around humans that much, but he’d guess the man’s not actually been a man that long. “South of here,” Stiles says. “So your father—”

Chris immediately hunches back, pulling his hands away from the hide. He twists them in the rope. “He?” he says.

“Should I help him?” Stiles says. He pokes himself with the needle, curses, and then the grass breaks on him. He sighs and knots it off, and then picks up another strand. 

For a long time Chris is silent. He moves a couple times like he’s going to back off, only to plant himself down again with a wordless grimace.

In the end, he resorts to getting a stick and scratching a few words in the ground. The verb tense is a mess but Stiles gathers that Chris doesn’t know. Whether that means he doesn’t have an opinion, or is conflicted, or what, well, that’s lost in the bad grammar.

When he’s done, Chris pulls his limbs even tighter in towards himself. He looks at Stiles as if he’s expecting some kind of rebuke, and when it doesn’t come, he frowns. Bites his lip, watches Stiles fighting with the hide. Then he sucks in a breath.

“String?” he says tentatively.

“I feel like that would be acknowledging this isn’t just a side trip,” Stiles says. He looks at the hide, which is spilling plant fluff everywhere, and then sighs and puts it down. “Damn it. Well, what, you got any ideas? And don’t say going into town. What I’ve seen so far, I’m not really big on trying to sort out what weird ideas you people have about sphinxes, and I’m so not going in on two legs.”

Because while Stiles can defend himself, not being able to immediately fly off is kind of a huge limitation. He’s not sure how much Chris has figured out from finding his broken primaries, but he’s certainly not going to let any other people in on his little problem.

Chris takes things in for a second, then starts drawing in the dirt again. His bound hands make it a little hard and he starts to pull at the rope. Pauses, looks hard at Stiles, and when Stiles shrugs, he unravels it and tosses it aside—since he got those knots undone ages ago, probably while he was bathing—and then continues sketching.

He draws Stiles a very crude map of one of the towns, then adds a couple buildings that appear to be in the woods near the town. Those get a lot more detail, with him even doing his best to draw little inserts to show defensive measures. The only in-town building that gets the same treatment is one that he tersely (even compared to his current limited vocabulary) explains is where his father is.

Anyway, the other buildings appear to be storehouses of some kind. “Meat,” Chris says, pointing at one. Then he jabs the stick at another. “Army.”

The storm had been pretty bad, but even so, Stiles is fairly sure he would’ve spotted a building the size of a garrison. “You mean arms? Like weapons?”

Chris nods hesitantly. “Arms. Weapons,” he repeats awkwardly.

“Tools?” Stiles says.

“Yes,” Chris says. He considers his map for another moment. “Clothes?”

“How about books?” Stiles says. “In whatever language you people speak?”

Chris looks blank. Stiles is about to move on and ask about blankets, but then Chris’ face clears. Now he’s looking kind of oddly at Stiles, like he understands the words but like the meaning is completely nonsensical. He rubs the side of his face, muttering to himself again, and then pushes himself up and draws a new building. It’s very far off from the others.

“No,” he says, putting his finger on it. Then he leans over and touches his father’s house. “No.”

“Fine, then you don’t have—” Stiles starts.

“Yes,” Chris says, poking a building right in the center of town. Then he raises a warning hand. “Sacred. Precious. Shit, shit—holy? House. Holy house.”

“Oh! Temple!” And then Stiles sighs. “Oh, great, I see, religious texts only, no secular literature. Man, must be fun to live around here.”

“Woods,” Chris says sharply, waving his hand at it.

Stiles looks at him and Chris gets a little tense, but doesn’t back off. And when Stiles snorts, the man’s mouth twitches a bit. “Yeah, whatever, hometown pride,” Stiles says. “Fine. So, you saw where the meat is, I guess I’ll leave the watering hole open for now, and if somebody comes, just climb the Nemeton. I’ll be back in a few.”

Chris blinks a few times, then opens his mouth. But whatever’s on his mind, he never actually tries to say it. He just stares at Stiles.

Well, he can do that as much as he wants. But daylight’s wasting, and Stiles wants a decent bed tonight, so he turns around and jumps over the fence.

* * *

Getting around on four feet is. So. Slow. The trees aren’t even very good for jumping, seeing as pines tend to have spindly branches. And the dirt here is full of little rocks and pine needles. Stiles might have super-duper healing powers, but it’s still annoying to have to stop and yank stuff out of his paw pads all the time.

He ends up going full human very briefly, so he can take advantage of the smaller size (these trees are not thick enough to hide his leonine form) and use one of the pines as an overlook to scope out the storehouse with the tools. It’s more of a shack, really, knocked together out of raw planks and rocks and wooden shingles that still have the bark on them.

Also, it’s not guarded. It does have tripwires, which Stiles avoids, and very crude rune protection, which Stiles temporarily blocks. Inside is just as rough-looking as the outside, with storage bins made out of crudely-mortared bricks and rocks, and a couple planks for lids. But it does have useful things: Stiles gets an awl, an ax, and a piece of parchment with text on it that somebody had stuffed into a chink.

The rest of it—some knives, and lots and lots of arrows—he has no use for, but it does tell him these people have a thing for mountain ash and silver. Interesting.

Stiles leaves them for the time being and goes outside, and hey, he’s got an audience. “Uh, hi?”

The two wolves don’t move from the leafpile where they’re hiding.

“I can totally see you,” Stiles sighs. He tucks his takings under one arm, then shifts to four legs and leaps straight up into the air.

Perfect view of big round wolfy eyes and gaping mouths as they explode out of the leaves, each darting in a different direction. Stiles laughs and snaps his wings out just as he reaches the height of his jump; he can’t really fly, but he can certainly glide a few yards, and that takes him well beyond where the wolves figured he’d be going. They practically fall over themselves, trying to whip around so he’s not at their backs.

One of them runs off like it’s leaving, but stops when it notices the other one isn’t with it. That one’s a fair bit bigger. They both have strange glowing blue eyes, but the glow starts to fade as Stiles lands on a half-fallen trunk, and the closer one’s eyes are still blue while the one farther off has brown eyes.

“Hey,” Stiles says.

They don’t move. Both of them are slanting back on their hindlegs, their fore ones stiff and straight and ready to lunge, or to send them bolting backwards. The farther one does bark, sharp and nervous, but the closer one is completely silent.

“So, sorry about the kills and all, but I’m going to be here for a little bit,” Stiles adds. They keep staring at him and it’s starting to get weird; the birds around here can understand him just fine, so he’s not sure why the wolves would have issues with it. He switches to Latin and repeats himself, and for a second he thinks the nearer wolf’s ears move, but otherwise he gets the same blank stare. “Right, well, whatever. I gotta go, got important things to do.”

So he pulls his wings in and jumps back into the trees. That blue-eyed wolf rears back like it’s maybe measuring up to follow, but then it turns around. It lopes to where the other one is, pauses, and then the two of them run off. They’re going away from town, but it’s in the direction of that one building, where Chris said don’t go.

But it’s getting dark. Stiles reins in his curiosity and makes his way back to the Nemeton, where, for some reason, Chris has taken it upon himself to finish Stiles’ work with the hides.

He’s a pretty good stitcher, too. Stiles grins and runs his hand over the sleeping pad, and then looks up and catches Chris watching maybe a little closely. Chris blinks hard, ducks back, and then rubs furiously at the side of his face.

“Great, thanks!” Stiles says, and then he carries the pad up into his nest. Because he’s walked more in the past couple days than he normally does in a month, and he’s tired.

The pad…is not a total fix. It’s too thin for Stiles’ weight, and it still lets the knobs on the branches prod through, but it’s definitely an improvement. Stiles promptly curls up on it and goes to sleep.

When he wakes up, it’s only been a couple hours but it’s well after dark at that point. He shakes a few cramps out of his limbs, then climbs down and goes to relieve himself, and almost trips over Chris. For some reason, the man’s huddled down at the bottom of the tree.

“Aren’t you cold?” Stiles says, looking him over. Shivering, teeth chattering, red tips on the extremities, yeah, humans don’t do much better in this climate than Stiles does.

Chris hisses and plasters himself against the trunk, even though Stiles isn’t even touching him. He snaps something very rapid and angry-sounding, and definitely not Latin, and then, when Stiles takes a step away, he skitters off and nearly tips into the watering hole. Stiles is about to ask him what is the matter with him, and then…well, Stiles came down the tree to do something, and right now Chris is looking a little crazed, even if he’s not so stupid as to try and attack Stiles.

So Stiles goes off and has a piss, and then comes back. The man is still there, and shivering even worse now; the night wind isn’t very strong but it is like ice and now Chris doesn’t have the trunk blocking it.

Stiles sits back on his haunches and considers the man. “I think you’re going to freeze to death down here,” he finally says. When that just earns him another long string he doesn’t understand, he has a very tough time resisting the urge to just swat the idiot like he would a stubborn cub. “Can you, you know, not climb or something?”

Chris stops mid-rant and looks at Stiles like…like Stiles is the dumb cub. He even raises and lowers his hand with exactly that kind of exasperated, completely at a loss air.

“Ugh, whatever, I don’t want to have to clear out your ice corpse in the morning,” Stiles says, and just pounces the man.

Give him credit, Chris is surprisingly fast, and smart enough to go for a kick to Stiles’ belly. Stiles, however, has a spine that can twist back on itself, and he uses it to dodge the kick and then scoop up the man from behind. Then goes with the momentum so he circles back around to the Nemeton, and jumps up into the tree.

The nest is roomy enough so that once he dumps Chris in one corner, they don’t have to be touching each other. Granted, that requires Stiles to squish his back legs and tuck his tail in, neither of which are very comfortable, so he gives up after a couple minutes. The ax and awl are where Chris can’t get them, and Stiles would _love_ to see the expression on Chris’ face if the man tries to use his own feathers against him, so the most Chris can do is just hand to hand. Which would also be funny.

But which Chris doesn’t do. He gets all stiff and still, barely breathing, when Stiles stretches out and just happens to end up with his back feet up against Chris’ legs, but he’s back to all that watching. It’s starting to get a little irritating and Stiles covers up by pulling out that bit of parchment, and tracing the words out in the air with his finger so they tell him what they mean.

He’s still not sure what language it’s in, but it appears to be part of a text on mythological animals, and he’s pretty sure he has the entry on some kind of were-beast, probably a lizard. Not a were-beast he’s heard of before, either. “Huh. Well, this isn’t religious,” he mutters.

“Where,” Chris says. He’s looking at the paper, though when Stiles looks over, he sucks in his breath and tucks back against the nest wall. “Page. Where…town?”

“No. No, I did not go to town. I went to the shed with the tools, which, by the way, I don’t know why you seem to be wasting all your mountain ash and silver on arrows,” Stiles says. “You do know that stuff is only good against something like twenty percent of supernatural species, right?”

Chris clearly does not understand all of that, and is very frustrated. He’s also very frustrated that he can’t lean over and look at the paper without accidentally touching Stiles’ leg, or bumping into Stiles’ tail—and he can glare all he likes, it’s him running into it—and that he’s still shivering, because he’s way over by the nest entrance. He’s just perpetually frustrated, Stiles is starting to think.

Well, he can gnash his teeth and waste energy scowling if he wants. “Don’t make me grab you again, all right?” Stiles says. 

He puts the paper away and then turns over. Pushes half-heartedly at some especially poky branch knots, and then sighs and curls up and goes back to sleep.

Tries to go back to sleep. Chris keeps moving around, and talking to himself, and then he steps on Stiles’ tail, which hurts. Stiles snarls and opens his eyes, and then rolls them upon finding Chris frozen with his hand snatched back to his chest, wide-eyed and thin-lipped. 

“It’s like babysitting,” Stiles grumbles, and just tucks his tail up against the nest’s curve.

Also, it’s still cold. The pad doesn’t help at all with that, unfortunately. Stiles really needs to get a blanket. For now, he just swears to himself and attempts to glue his knees to his chest. It’s so annoying that even at his furriest, he doesn’t get fur past his belly-button.

“Stiles?” Chris says. He’s surprisingly close when Stiles looks up, down on his hands and knees just a foot away.

“Oh, now what?” Stiles snaps.

Chris purses his lips, then looks at Stiles. And down Stiles, though like most humans, he twitches and snaps his eyes back up soon as it gets to Stiles’ waist. Then he lifts his hand. He pauses, looking weirdly…embarrassed…and then points at the bed. Then at Stiles. “Bed. Warm?”

“Not really, seriously, why the hell is this place so cold?” Stiles mutters, smushing his face as deeply into the pad as it will go.

He looks up again because Chris is making a very bizarre noise. At first he thinks the man is choking, and then Chris takes the hand off his nose and mouth and…it’s kind of twisted up and pained-looking, but Chris appears to be smiling. So he’s laughing.

“Bed _warm_ ,” Chris finally says to himself. He shakes his head, then puts it down and keeps on laughing into the sleeping pad.

“Your jokes here are weird,” Stiles says.

Chris rocks his head up without pulling it off the pad so he can look at Stiles. He’s still laughing. He moves his hand like he’s going to say something else, then has to put it down as he starts wheezing. He digs in with his fingers, coughs a couple times, and then shakes his head. Then again. And then he sighs and pushes himself up, so he’s actually sitting sphinx-style on his forearms and folded legs.

“Cold?” he says.

Stiles looks at him for a second. “Also, you are strangely fond of stating the obvious. I mean, I know there’s a language barrier and all, but—”

“Cold,” Chris says again. It’s firmer but it’s not exactly certain, like he’s trying to point out something without knowing if Stiles will take it well. Then he shuffles forward a few inches. He looks at Stiles, then shuffles forward a little more.

So Stiles gets it, and at this rate the birds will be singing up dawn before they manage to settle it. He sighs and rolls over onto his side, then pushes his arms up by his head to make room. That should carry across to human sensibilities.

Chris goes stiff again and there’s a flare of anger in his eyes, but it’s a little distracted. It’s not at Stiles, anyway, and it goes away when he takes a deep breath. He hesitates another second, then gingerly swings his legs around so that he’s lying alongside Stiles, on his belly. Stiles suppresses the urge to thank the heavens and earth that they’re finally getting there, and just lets his limbs relax around the man.

An arm across Chris makes him flinch but he settles down after a few seconds, so Stiles tries popping out a wing. Chris hisses but he actually jerks _into_ Stiles, almost rolling so they’re back to front. Then he stops. He makes a puzzled noise and then reaches out, and carefully pokes a feather.

“Feather,” he says. “No…no metal?”

“Nah, not when I’m sleeping. I spent a whole day putting this stupid thing together, why would I dice it up now?” Stiles says. He works his wing around a couple different angles—the nest isn’t big enough for a full stretch and he needs to settle it so it won’t spasm on him—and then folds it over them. “Can I go to sleep now? Are you going to go kill yourself via bad weather?”

Chris puts his arm down, and rolls back onto his belly. He’s still looking at Stiles’ wing, but he’s not moving and he’s not talking, so Stiles takes the chance and dozes off.

* * *

Waking up is interesting, seeing as Chris has managed to flip himself completely around and is now snuggling chest to chest with Stiles. Also, seeing as he has a little fit when he figures that out, and comes _this_ close to getting tangled up in Stiles’ wing. He might be strangely intriguing, what with the constant bad temper and weird language, but Stiles will absolutely slice him up rather than break a wing bone. Instant healing doesn’t mean proper setting, and Stiles _hates_ having to rebreak and reset (repeatedly, because wings have to be perfect to work, and he apparently does not have a great touch for that sort of thing).

Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that, although Chris probably gets himself a few bruises scrambling out of the tree. Stiles goes up to the top of the tree instead of following the man and carefully works out his wings, checking them over, and only when he’s sure they’re good does he go to the ground.

“Apology,” Chris says to him there, voice tight, face flushed. He’s dragged out the elk and cut off a portion for Stiles with one of the broken primaries.

“Well, at least you don’t snore,” Stiles says, and Chris almost smiles before settling down to butcher his own meat.

Stiles makes him another fire to cook with, and then, spotting berries on a nearby bush, breaks off a branch and carries it back to Chris. They eat in peaceable silence for a while.

“I guess we can get you clothes today,” Stiles says. “If there’s clothes, there’s something I can rip up for bedding, much as I hate making you all think I’m just an oversized magpie. I swear, next time I’m taking the regular trade winds. Not being near a proper bazaar sucks.”

“You out?” Chris says, looking up. He looks both urgent and reluctant at the same time. “You—Stiles. You…my father…”

“What about him?” Stiles says.

Chris fights with his words for a few minutes. Finally he just shoves his hands down into the ground and stares over Stiles’ head into the woods. “He…bribe. To pay you. Today he…path. Sheep, path, me, path, today…”

“Oh. Oh, what, he’s going to leave me something again?” Stiles didn’t leave a message after taking Chris with him, but then, not just killing Chris or leaving him there probably said something.

Or at least, to Chris’ father it’d say something. Exactly what, Stiles doesn’t know, he doesn’t usually deal with people who can’t or won’t write him a proper message, but he supposes he should check it out since he has to stick around for a while. He’s pretty sure they have no idea how to hurt a sphinx, but he still doesn’t feel like starting a war or something like that.

“I’ll go look,” he says. “You still on the fence about helping him?”

“He, my _father_ ,” Chris says heavily. His head even sinks as he speaks, and one of his hands goes back to touch his unmarked side. Then he shakes himself and he takes a deep breath. Looks around and then at Stiles, his mouth twisting in a bitter smile. “Me here.”

“Well, I’m looking. No promises.” Stiles shrugs. “He can’t put a one-way contract on me like that. And all right, I didn’t have to kill you, but I didn’t ask for you either. I don’t think I owe him anything.”

Chris doesn’t look happy about that, but he doesn’t exactly look unhappy, either. Mostly he just looks like he would rather not be talking about this. 

“I might be awhile,” Stiles says, standing up. “Probably need to get more meat too…you can finish the elk off, I’ll grab something else. I wonder if you have moa around here? I love moa. Anyway, see you later.”

* * *

Stiles circles up to the crossroads by way of treetops, cursing pine needles the whole way. He doesn’t see anything there till he’s almost right on top of it, because today’s offering is…a scrap of fabric and a smooth, flat stone with runes written on it in red wax. The message is straightforward enough: help, illness here.

The cloth was once a handkerchief, or something similar, but it’s covered in stiff, smelly, dull red crusts. Stiles doesn’t even need to touch it to know it’s from somebody with rotting lungs. Growths in them, really bad, almost to the point that the magical cure would have to come from a necromancer.

Then he leaps back up into the trees, because somebody is coming.

He has a bit of a wait—they’re trying to sneak up and they don’t realize he’s onto him till they’re within right range. And then the woman grins and she just takes her time sauntering up to the crossroads.

She’s quite tall, with long dark hair that she wears loose down her back. She’s also naked, and judging from how she’s carrying herself, that’s a personal choice and not something that was forced upon her. Her features are beautiful by human standards, and she has a set of very white, very large teeth that she bares at Stiles as she looks up at him. But there’s something…unsettling about her. Something in her eyes, something that makes the hairs on his haunches stiffen, and his tail thump roughly against the trunk.

“Sphinx,” she says. “Did Gerard call you here? Are you the one who’s supposed to save his sorry hide?”

Also, she speaks perfect classical Latin. Figures that Stiles finally finds somebody he can have an intelligent conversation with, and they’re already coming off as a bit nasty. 

“Nobody _calls_ a sphinx,” he says, arching against the branch he’s perched on. His claws shave off bark chips that pepper the woman, and he has to curl his tail under himself so she won’t see how angrily it’s lashing. “As for my business here, that’s mine. But if you’re referring to that stuff in the path, well, somebody wants to offer me something, I’m not really the one you should be taking it up with, am I?”

The woman smiles. It is not in the least friendly. “Do you know what kind of man Gerard is?”

“Do I know what kind of person _you_ are?” Stiles says.

“You—” the woman says, taking a sharp step forward. Then she visibly controls herself. She puts her fists down at her side, and then forces her fingers to uncurl. “You. If you need something to make up your mind, there are others here who can do better than him.”

“Sure, let’s make it a contest,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes, and then he takes off into the forest, because this clearly is not going to be a productive conversation.

He doesn’t find any birds bigger than a pheasant (which aren’t really worth it for him), but he’s pleased to take down an aurochs—an old bull, must’ve wandered up here to get away from the constant rut challenges in the grasslands—and of course he does that before he goes for the clothes and the bedding. Normally he’d stuff it somewhere for safe-keeping, but after twenty minutes of fruitless circling for a tree strong enough, he just hauls it back to the Nemeton.

Chris is sitting near the fence, frowning and looking at something on the ground, but he jumps up when he sees Stiles. “Return now?” he says sharply.

“Just dropping off,” Stiles grunts. The aurochs is a little big for him to just carry over the fence, so he skins and guts it and then bites the spine in two, using a primary to sever the rest of the body. Eats the liver, because that’s his favorite, and then he throws the two halves over the fence. “What’s got you so jumpy?”

The thing Chris was looking at is a plant—Stiles thinks he sees little flowers on it—but before Stiles can identify it, one of the aurochs legs flops over it. He curses and jumps into the ring, but by the time he wrestles the leg up, the ground’s so matted with blood that he can’t find the plant again.

Chris doesn’t seem that upset about it. Actually, he’s not even paying attention. He’s pulling at his hair and staring in the direction of the town.

So Stiles hops the fence again, and picks up a fresh trail of prints. “The wolves here are strange,” he says, looking at them. “Usually they know better than to wander this close to a Nemeton.”

“Wolves?” Chris snaps. “Where?”

“Well, right here, obviously,” Stiles says. He squats down and whiffs. Interesting. The blue-eyed one. “I feel like I’m missing something. You have a problem with wolves?”

When he turns around, Chris is standing with his arms rigidly down at his sides, fighting some kind of internal war. All Stiles does is flex his hands—because carrying an aurochs gives you massive finger cramps—and Chris takes a low, sharp breath.

Then his head tilts a little. He comes to some sort of conclusion and abruptly drops into a squat. Hesitates, then eases himself forward, towards the fence. He’s doing that odd maneuver where he’s going flankwise to Stiles again, with his head twisted around. “Stiles,” he says. “Wolves, no. No wolves.”

“Uh, there clearly are wolves, and you clearly have some issue—” Stiles says.

“ _No_ ,” Chris says emphatically.

Stiles considers this. “No issue with the wolves. You’re good with the wolves?”

Chris is not, says the way he almost winces, but he’s also not looking furious. If anything, he seems worried. “My father, wolves,” he says after a strained second. “Death.”

“Your father kills wolves,” Stiles says, and Chris shakes his head, then holds up his hand. He makes an odd gesture where his hands are jabbing at each other and—oh. “Oh, they kill each other. And mountain ash and oh! Werewolves!”

That is totally it, and yet, Chris just gets more agitated. He sits up on his knees so he’s free to jerk his hands through the air. “My father, wolves—werewolves—” it’s actually the Greek word (second one he knows so far) and he can’t quite get his mouth around it “—obsession. Everyone, death. They, he, no.”

“But you’ve got one visiting you,” Stiles points out.

And Chris grabs his face and breathes hard into it. His fingers tighten, digging white circles into his skin that go red when he peels off his hand. “Warning,” he says. Almost spits out, except that there’s something complicated but softer wrapped around the aggravation. “ _Talia._ ”

“Talia?” Stiles says. “That’s the wolf’s name?”

Chris’ temper snaps, and he snarls a whole bunch of non-Latin at Stiles. The little bit of parchment apparently _is_ in the same language, because now Stiles can pick out a word here or there, but that fragment wasn’t long enough for him to make any sense of what Chris is saying now. 

The man seems to realize that, shaking his head even as he keeps on going. He grabs at his head again, then gets an idea and starts scrabbling around on the ground. Finds a stick, then redraws part of his map from the other day. Then he points at that one building way off from the town.

“Talia, _no_ ,” he says. He pauses. His shoulders hunch and when he speaks again, his voice is much quieter. He sounds a little angry, a little bitter, and also, regretful. “Fire, my father, my—my sister. Death, Talia’s husband. My sister, death. Talia, my father, war.”

“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with his sickness, would it?” Stiles says after a moment.

Chris starts to answer, then stops. He looks tired. He raises his hand, then drops it, and shrugs at the same time.

“Probably doesn’t matter what caused it, if he thinks it was her.” When Chris’ head snaps up, Stiles sighs and then plucks up a handful of grass. He scatters it over the prints, leans back to look, and then gets to his feet. “Well, whatever. I’m not that interested in the locals anyway. So, um, I’m off for the clothes now. If you get bored, mind butchering the rest of that? Don’t worry about the blood, the Nemeton will drink it off.”

He points to the aurochs. For a couple seconds Chris keeps staring at _him_ , as if he’s never seen Stiles before. Then Chris shakes his head. He blinks, raises his hand as if to run it over the top of his head, and then glances over. Starts a little like he forgot about the aurochs, too. Chris does run that hand over his head, and then he sighs and nods.

“Great,” Stiles says, and then bounds off.

The clothes storehouse is closer than the tool one, but not by much. It’s still an annoyingly long trek out, and now made even longer since Stiles can’t help watching out for werewolves. They’re very rare where he comes from—were-cats are the dominant were—and he’s never actually met one in person. 

Not that he really wants to meet one here. He’s curious, sure, but from what he got from Chris, it seems like the local pack is embroiled in some sort of crazy war with the townspeople. Isn’t really what casual visitors want to get involved with, what with getting stuck even _longer_ , and oh, yeah, things that won’t kill you _still_ can hurt like hell.

But Stiles doesn’t run into any on his way to the storehouse, and he doesn’t run into any on his way back. He does circle around to the crossroads to see if that’s changed, but that woman, whoever she was, didn’t touch anything and neither has anybody else.

“Stiles,” Chris says incredulously, upon seeing the bundles Stiles drops. He’s dealt with the aurochs and washed off so vigorously that he smells of coolness and Nemeton, and doesn’t have a trace of the town anymore. 

He drops and pulls out one bundle, then flaps it so it unfolds. Stiles wasn’t sure what it was, but judging by how Chris snorts and holds it up against himself, it’s a dress, and here men don’t wear dresses. “You don’t get out much, do you?” Stiles says. He takes the dress back and then slits the sides. “Blanket.”

Chris ignores him, already back digging in the pile. He tugs out a couple things and then takes them over a few feet to try them on. He at least seems to be in a better mood than before.

Good, because Stiles is hungry and is tired, in that order. He gorges on aurochs and then grabs the rest of the clothes and climbs up into the nest for an early night.

* * *

“Oh,” Stiles says at some point in the night, half-waking to a pair of hands on his wing. “You mess it up, I will end you. Also, not cold, huh.”

Chris freezes as soon as Stiles starts talking. Then he makes a little chagrined noise and pulls his hands off. He’s lying on his back, snuggled under the wing, wearing a shirt that’s too loose and that has rucked up past his waist. Once he’s determined that Stiles isn’t going to immediately end him, he goes back to looking at the wing.

“Break?” he says quietly, pointing to one of the gaps where the primary needs to grow back.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but…well, you have eyes, stupid to lie,” Stiles mutters. His tail-tip is chilly. He curls it under his wing and it brushes up against something that makes Chris yelp and barely stop himself from twisting up. Rolling his eyes, Stiles swishes his tail around till he finds somewhere that doesn’t make Chris flinch to put it. “It’ll grow back.”

“Time?” Chris says. He contorts himself strangely, and a moment later Stiles feels his hand on Stiles’ tail. He hesitates, then delicately shifts it over about two inches.

Stiles considers making up something. Sure, Chris will figure it out by watching, but even a smart human won’t be able to accurately estimate until at least a week has passed. 

Chris straightens up and then shifts over so that he’s looking Stiles in the eye. “New feather, you gone?”

Well, that Stiles can answer without hesitation. “I hope so. I really, really hope so.”

Chris breathes in slowly. He doesn’t exactly look surprised. “Me?”

“Are you asking whether I’ll take you?” Stiles says. 

“No,” Chris says immediately, sharply. He winces before he’s halfway through, bracing himself for a backlash, and then stays pulled tightly in even after he sees that Stiles is just curious. “No. Here, home.”

“With your father and your murderous werewolf neighbors?” Stiles says. “Seriously?”

After a moment, Chris sighs and lays his cheek against the floor of the nest. He shrugs loosely, his mouth twisting wryly. “Life?”

“You are very, very strange,” Stiles finally says. Then hisses as a draft finds his bare back. The branches must be shrinking as they dry; he’ll have to find that crack in the morning and patch it, since he’s starting to smell rain in the air. “Well, makes it easier. I’m not built for passengers. I mean, I’ll let you out of the fence before I go, letting you starve is just going to make the Nemeton go crazy and it’s already a little touched in the head, as they go.”

“To thank you?” Chris says doubtfully.

“Thank you,” Stiles corrects, and then laughs. He snuggles down in the stolen clothes—not enough to cover him, but do they make better cushioning—and then, on a whim, shifts over so that he’s curling up around Chris. Ignores how stiff the man is and just enjoys the additional warmth. “You know, considering you basically have no verbs and your adjectives are dubious at best, you’re not bad company for the worst detour I’ve ever been on. I don’t know what your deal is, but you should try surviving.”

Chris doesn’t say anything, so Stiles assumes the man doesn’t understand of that. He’s also relaxing—very, very slowly, as if he’s got to release his muscles one at a time—and then he puts his hand down to take Stiles’ tail again. Except instead of pushing it away, he hangs onto it. It’s a very slack grip, a mere flick would see Stiles loose again, but…Chris’ hand is warm, and it’s actually holding Stiles’ tail at an angle that’s more comfortable than Stiles could manage on his own. So Stiles doesn’t flick it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m mixing mythologies with this version of sphinx: generally we’re going with Egyptian, but there are some Greek sphinx aspects thrown in, and the metal feathers are from the Stymphalian birds. Other stuff is from predatory bird and big-cat behavior. And some stuff I've just made up.
> 
> Latin does, in fact, have native swear words. The ancient Romans were a _very_ profane people. Also, Latin might have very formal connotations now, but it was once a living language and so its speakers of course had slang and were able to communicate in more colloquial, ungrammatical styles. So I'm making no attempt to directly translate Latin grammatical structure into the characters' speech, because that wouldn't get across the actual feel that the characters would understand (in terms of formal vs. informal, slang, emotions, etc.).
> 
> The word lycanthropy originates from a Greek term, and ancient Greek and Roman sources did mention werewolves.


	2. Chapter 2

First thing the next morning, Stiles finds that crack and patches it. Then he climbs atop the nest and fluffs out his wings, and seriously starts examining them. He’s already gone over the primaries but he left the rest of the feathers while he was getting everything else together. But a bunch of broken spines elsewhere will mess up his flying to the point that being able to get off the ground might actually be a worse thing, so he needs to root out all of those now.

He saves the downy ones for pillow-stuffing, just dropping them into the nest for now. The others, he turns metal and then makes a game out of darting them at the top of the fence ringing the Nemeton.

Every now and then he misses one. Chris just watches at first, but the third time Stiles misses, the feather falls within the fence and Chris gets up. He glances up at the tree, and when he sees that Stiles has paused, he slides forward, grabs the feather, and then slides back. He tilts it between his fingers, studying it intently, and then flicks it neatly into the fence.

Stiles laughs, because that was pretty good for a human. He swings his wings back and stretches them out, feeling for the spots where the wind doesn’t ride smoothly over them, and then pulls his right one forward as he hears something. Then swings it back, and leaps higher up into the tree, till he can get a view of who’s coming.

It’s a whole group. That woman from before, with somebody unconscious over her shoulder, likely a man. She’s got three people—no, it’s another woman tagging after her, very young, and then two children, a boy and a girl. The two women are arguing fiercely, and then the younger one makes a grab for the man slung over the other’s shoulder.

The first woman drops the man like he’s a sack of something cheap and then leaps for the second, who snarls, showing long fangs, but who’s doing her damnedest to get out of the way. She doesn’t quite make it: Stiles smells blood as the first woman’s head slams into the second’s shoulder.

The two children scream. Chris had already been frowning quizzically up at Stiles, but now he stiffens. He twists around, then turns back and waves up at Stiles. “Who?” he shouts.

Both women are now wrestling around. Well, the first one is wrestling, the second is just trying to claw the first one off her shoulder. Then the second one twists around and yells something at the boy, who’s taken a couple halting steps towards them. He pulls up short, and then starts towards the man.

The first one raises her head. Her mouth is all red, and so are her eyes. She snarls at the boy, who freezes with wide, shocked eyes. He just stands there till the other child knocks him away, just before the first one’s hand would have caught him.

The second one starts _fighting_ when she sees that, not just trying to twist free. She sends them rolling over and over.

“Stiles!” Chris shouts. “Stiles!”

The man abruptly lifts his head. He shakes his head groggily, then twists clumsily over onto his back. His hands and feet are chained, Stiles notes. He goes still when he sees the fight, and then rears up as much as he can and roars.

Chris shuts up like somebody cut his throat.

The women break temporarily apart. The younger one’s closer to the man, but she’s barely gotten to her hands and knees when the first one suddenly lunges and grabs the boy by the neck. She gestures at him, then at the man, and whatever’s being said makes the younger woman look horrified, and the man look like he very badly wants to wake up now.

The younger woman puts her hands out, but the older woman says something that makes her snatch them back. Then the older woman pushes her aside. Shoves the boy into her along the way, making them both stumble back and then fall to their knees, the younger woman hugging the boy as if she fully expects it to be the last time.

But no, the older woman’s going for the man. She steps over his kick, then kicks him in the leg, breaking the bone. The leg reknits as Stiles watches, and in the meantime, the woman’s gotten the man by the neck and has forced him to roll over onto his belly. She stoops and gets her knee on his back, and then lifts her head, facing towards the Nemeton.

“Sphinx!” she calls. “I know you can hear me.”

“Stiles,” Chris suddenly says. He’s hoarse and sounds like he’s wringing every word from his throat. “Stiles, Talia.”

“I guessed,” Stiles sighs. He’s lost even more feathers, but…they’re slightly uphill, and it’s not too far, and there’s a good stiff wind.

He launches himself into the air and then glides down to the group. Makes damn sure he lands in a tree, and high enough up that it’d take more than one leap for a werewolf to get at him. Then he shifts off his wings. Sharpens his claws on the trunk, takes a leisurely, three-jump way down to where they can talk without screaming.

“You came,” Talia says. She’s not smug about it, or even mocking. She’s just grim, in a very intense way that sets the fur on Stiles’ legs on end.

“Racket you’re making, I figured I’d better, before we have the Nemeton triggering massacres everywhere. But if you want to say you called me, whatever,” Stiles says, shrugging. “I can’t stop you from lying.”

Talia doesn’t even blink. Stiles might as well be talking to a stone statue, and for that matter, the other woman—who now has the girl clinging to her, too—and the two children might as well be stone, too.

“You said if I could outbid Gerard,” she says. She jerks at the man’s neck, and then lifts her knee off him and flings him into the base of Stiles’ tree like a crumpled bit of paper. “His son is useless. Peter at least can kill for you.”

“I,” Stiles says, and then stops. Because things he completely did not mean to happen. 

“The man’s got rot in him. Don’t stop it,” Talia goes on. She steps back, wiping streaks of blood over her hips, which are already crusted over with several layers of finger-shapes. “One payment for that. If you help me kill him—”

“I’m not interested,” Stiles says, because he does _not_ need to see Talia turning to look at those two kids.

She does anyway, and the look on her face, it could rival any adder for venom. She doesn’t just hate them, doesn’t just want them dead; she wants them erased, that’s what that look says.

It makes the younger woman’s eyes flare red. Talia’s upper lip lifts and her eyes also flare, their red more intense by a couple magnitudes. Then she turns back to Stiles. “I know what you are,” she says sternly. “I know about serpent’s tooth.”

“A lot of people do,” Stiles says. In retrospect, he’s glad he ditched the wings, because keeping his tail still is hard enough.

“I know _which_ serpent you fear,” she says. “Gerard doesn’t. He does not want to die, and he does not bargain when he can force. If he learns of it, he will find it and will use it on you.”

The younger woman abruptly breaks in. She’s talking rapidly and urgently, and she shakes off the children almost violently when they try to hold her back. She takes a step forward, then points at the man.

Talia attempts to ignore her, but then the woman tries to grab her arm. So Talia slaps her back, leaving a deep set of claw marks across her cheek. Then Talia says something back in icy, very deliberate tones. She looks from the man to the children and the gist is pretty obvious: one or the other.

The woman snarls at Talia, tears streaming over her bloodied cheek, but she drops back. She looks helplessly at the man, who…laughs harshly. Says something that makes the woman flinch, and Talia casually kick out at his head. Clawed feet too, Stiles notes. Red drops and tufts of hair scatter as Talia puts her foot back down.

“Help me and I will burn that book,” Talia says to Stiles. She looks at him for a second longer, with eyes as dead as they had been hateful towards the children. “You didn’t leave anything for him yesterday. He will give you another day, and then he’ll come to the Nemeton. We’ll talk before that.”

“Looking forward to it,” Stiles says flatly. And adds a scrape of his claws against the trunk, just in case she’s going to take it like his last sarcastic comment.

Talia doesn’t even twitch, just turns around and looks at the other woman and the two children. They obviously don’t want to go, but the younger woman gathers the kids in to her and then starts dragging them off. The boy says something to Peter, whose stone face is not quite as good as Talia’s: the muscle in his jaw tics sharply.

Ignoring him, Talia strides after the trio. Stiles waits till they’re out of charging range and then comes down the tree. “Some argument you had there.”

Peter shifts back onto his feet, his teeth bared and his eyes blazing. For all that he’s heavily chained, he’s still a very well-built man, broad shoulders, good muscle under the assorted slashes and bruises, and he looks like he knows exactly how to use his body.

And then he drops down onto his belly. He coughs hard, then starts laughing again. It’s more than a little unhinged. “Ah, yes, my sister,” he says, Latin just as perfect. “Dear Talia. Well, sphinx, I am sorry you’ve come across us in this state. We used to be a little better than this.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Stiles says dryly. He looks over Peter a little more closely. Some of the lacerations are still bleeding, and two of Peter’s fingertips look mauled but it’s probably more like having his claws wrenched out. Leg looks healed so maybe he can walk. “Well, Peter, I’m Stiles, and I don’t know why all the people around here are so hellbent on being awful to each other, but I usually eat right around now. You?”

At first Peter looks like he’s going to start laughing again, and then he fights that down to just a very tight smile. He’s trembling very badly. “I do not appear to be in a position to argue.”

“Good enough,” Stiles says, and drops to all fours so he can get Peter over his back.

* * *

Chris doesn’t even pretend to be surprised when Stiles gets back to the tree. He does blow out his breath, running his hand back through his hair, and then he scoots well clear when he realizes Stiles is going to bring Peter over the fence. In fact, he seems to seriously contemplate climbing up into the nest for a second.

Peter says something in a very sarcastic tone to Chris, who answers, just as sarcastically, and with a good dollop of anger as well. But Chris stays on the ground, though he keeps well on the other side of the space.

Stiles lets Peter off by the water hole, and then kneels down to start sluicing water over Peter’s back, and see what they’re dealing with. “What, your visit earlier not go well?”

For all the hostility, Chris and Peter glance at each other at the same time. Then Peter props himself up on his forearms. He’s keeping his body curled in tight—also doing that flankwise thing, which makes it a werewolf habit? “I suppose not. I only wanted to know what his father was up to, but he insisted that I get out.”

Chris snaps something in his language, then slaps his hand to the side of his face. He starts up with that muttering to himself, and then shakes his head. Looks at Stiles. “His _sister_ ,” he says, so upset he’s barely intelligible. “My father, she—” he moves one hand after the other “—I, path, she, there.”

“He thinks I shouldn’t have come because Talia was already onto Gerard, and my coming might have given her this—” Peter goes a little shaky, like he’s choking down that laugh “—ridiculous idea in the first place.”

“I feel like he doesn’t like you translating for him,” Stiles says after a moment, watching Chris try not to strangle air with his hands.

Chris finally throws up his hands, and then he actually stalks around to the other side of the tree, where they can’t see each other. The corners of Peter’s mouth turn up but otherwise he really doesn’t look that amused.

“We have some bad blood,” Peter says, very calmly.

“You don’t say.” Stiles squats back and absently picks at a matted spot in his tail-tip, looking over Peter. He’s got most of the dirt off now, and can see now that that’s responsible for only a minority of the dark spots on Peter’s body. The rest is all bruising.

“You don’t understand English?” Peter asks.

Stiles shrugs. The bruises around Peter’s midsection are black enough that he figures they should check for internal bleeding. He slides his hand over it and the muscle there tightens, even though it makes Peter’s face whiten. Yeah, his palm’s getting that prickly, fever-hot feeling. “Oh, is that what you use up here? I’ve probably heard it before, we get everything back home, but there aren’t enough speakers around for me to have learned it.”

So he rolls Peter over onto his back and then straddles him, putting his hands to either side of Peter’s hips. He doesn’t grab them, hoping the man will just be sensible and not make him, and then bends down and puts his chin against Peter’s skin.

“What _do_ you speak, then? Besides Latin?” Peter twists once, uselessly trying to wrench his bound hands from behind himself, and then carefully slides up on his forearms. Otherwise he stays as still as Stiles could want. “Where are you from? We’ve never seen a sphinx here—I thought Cora was lying when she first said.”

“Way south. So, this is going to feel weird, and look really bad, but it’s fixing you,” Stiles says, and then stabs his fangs into Peter’s belly.

At the same time, he reaches around and grabs the chain on Peter’s wrist manacles, yanking it down. Peter snarls, as stunned as it’s furious, and Stiles hears Chris run back around the tree, then make a thick, cut-off sound.

And then both of them are quiet. Doing this doesn’t actually hurt, which is what’s probably keeping Peter still, and as for Chris, well, Stiles would bet he’s looking at the red webwork spreading out from where Stiles has Peter impaled on his fangs.

Stiles closes his mouth over his teeth, waits till he feels the clots bump up against them, and then starts sucking. The damage isn’t terrible and he manages to get them all in one go. Stretches out his cheeks like a hamster’s, and his mouth starts leaking as soon as he lifts his head. He rolls his eyes at himself and slaps his hand over his lips to keep it in. Checks that Peter’s belly is knitting fast enough so that he won’t end up disemboweled, and then slides off Peter to spit them out to the side.

“So, what’s your version of how this all happened?” he says when his mouth’s free again.

“What did Chris tell you?” Peter says after a moment. He sounds a little distracted.

He’s certainly a beat slow when Stiles comes back and starts licking at the bleeding slashes on his shoulder. He jerks away and Stiles sighs and hauls him back by the arm, and then grabs Peter under the jaw, in case the man starts getting ideas about his own fangs.

Peter makes a stifled, strangled noise, twisting sharply. He struggles a little harder as Stiles gets up towards his neck, and then seems to abruptly lose all his strength, going slack and breathing hard. Stiles pulls back and glances at him and his eyes are oddly unfocused. It’s a little disturbing, honestly, but Stiles doesn’t let go of Peter’s jaw, though he eases up on the grip a bit. “So I guess this is awkward for you, but believe me, it’s a lot faster than trying to find…whatever werewolves need to heal. Also, so, I said _your_ version.”

After that he goes back to licking shut Peter’s wounds, though he at least tries to avoid the throat when he can. It gets a little tricky with the wounds on Peter’s head—one puncture right behind his ear, some deep slashes hidden in his hair—but Peter breathes tightly and stops fighting.

Also, starts talking. “The Argents are werewolf hunters. We’ve been at odds for generations, but the last couple have been…particularly violent.” Peter pauses for an oddly long time, then chuckles under his breath. “Chris’ father wanted us out completely. His family didn’t disagree.”

“Adults,” Chris says curtly.

“Well, Chris, that’s all very well and good, but we have to raise our children, same as you. Did you expect us to leave the babies in your hands?” Peter says.

In Latin. Stiles has just finished working across Peter’s scalp and lifts his head in time to see Chris curl his hands into fists. Chris also starts to say something, in English, but then he cuts himself off. He actually makes a cutting gesture with his hand, viciously enough to turn him on one heel, and then he puts his hands up and presses them hard into his face.

“Stupid,” he spits out when his hands drop. He glances at Peter, then looks up and away, his jaw working. “Young. Child, me. I…death, adults gone, no death. You, no death. Happy?”

Peter actually doesn’t look that, although for a second he is surprised. He purses his lips, looking at the man, and then his eyes jerk down and his legs jerk up as Stiles starts on his back. Stiles grabs his manacles again, giving them a warning shake, and then helps Peter sit up and brushes off the fresh dirt before he starts lapping at the gashes.

“Gerard also had a daughter, Kate,” Peter says after a moment. He curls up more than he needs to, for Stiles to reach. His shoulders and head are trembling. They steady a little once he’s got his head resting on his knees, but not completely. “She was very beautiful.”

Chris turns and looks sharply at Peter. Whatever Peter’s expression is, it makes Chris rub at his face again, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“Talia, my sister, she married a…well. She chose him.” Peter’s voice goes very flat. “But he decided to take up with Kate, who had motives beyond just destroying a marriage.”

“My father,” Chris says, very quietly. His shoulders slump. “Orders.”

Peter pauses, as if to wait on Chris, but when nothing comes from that direction, he takes a deep breath. His hands curl into the manacles. “She got into our defenses. Set fire to our house. He died, along with several members of the family. Some children, some _humans_. Talia killed her shortly afterward, and then Gerard came after the rest of us.”

Then he falls silent. Stiles finishes up with his back and then stretches over to scoop some water from the water hole, just to rinse out his mouth. Healing always dries it out, for some reason.

He props himself up on his arm and looks over at the other two. Peter’s still curled in on himself, while just past him, Chris is standing with his arms wrapped around his chest. Chris catches Stiles looking and makes a slight movement towards him, then stops. Looks at Peter, then sighs and looks at Stiles again, and then makes a desultory gesture, asking if he should move away.

Stiles shrugs, then considers Peter again. Then he pokes a claw into the lock on the manacles. Fiddles around, whistles a couple cantrips, and when the lock springs open, he pushes off and goes around the man, and grabs an ankle. Peter’s legs are pretty clean, though that one Talia kicked still is a little swollen around the healed break. But there is one long slash going from his left knee up his thigh, nearly to his groin, and they might be different races but Stiles doesn’t need a translator to see how Peter might take that.

He takes hold of Peter’s knee and moves the man’s leg over to bare the whole slash, then settles himself between Peter’s legs. “For the record, I never actually told anybody I wanted pets, or slaves, or whatever your sister and his father are thinking,” Stiles says, bending over. “I’m just here because the weather is shit.”

Peter starts to ask something, then shuts up on a low inhale as Stiles starts licking. He uses his newly-free hands to dig into the ground, which is very reasonable of him. Then he says something in English.

He’s asking Chris something. Chris is already laughing quietly, just like that time in the nest, with a sharp, bitter edge of disbelief, and it takes him almost a minute to answer Peter. Who snaps back at Chris, who just laughs harder.

“You asked for a bedwarmer?” Peter finally says.

Stiles jerks his head up. “What? No! I wanted a blanket!”

Peter stares at him. Stiles already knew there was a damn translation problem but he’s…beginning to get exactly what it was now. Well, no, he _gets_ it, and he just. Either wants to stab himself in the face with his own claws, or stab Talia and this damn Gerard in their faces.

“Look,” Stiles mutters. He writes out the runes he used on the ground with a claw.

“Are you using futhark?” Peter says after a very long pause. He lifts his hand and rubs it very slowly over his mouth, as if trying to help push something back from his lips. It actually might not be amusement—or if it is him trying not to laugh, it’s that frantic laugh from before. “Gerard uses the futhorc alphabet.”

Stiles sighs, and just…bends over and gives the last bit of that slash on Peter’s leg a lick. Then he gets up and he goes over to get the aurochs meat. Gets himself a big hunk and raises it to his mouth. Then puts it down and makes himself look at the other two.

“Sorry,” he says. “Runes aren’t my best language.”

Peter opens his mouth, then slowly closes it. He looks over at Chris, who seems a little surprised at being consulted. Then Chris drops his shoulders in a weary shrug. He says something to Peter, who blinks hard. Then thinks it over, and then snorts. He pushes himself up, and then over, onto his hands and knees so that he can crawl to the aurochs.

“He says if it hadn’t been you, it would’ve been something just as insane,” Peter says to Stiles. He doesn’t move to dig into the aurochs, although he’s more than near enough. “He also…he says you aren’t interested in being pushed into this fight.”

Stiles suddenly doesn’t have an appetite. He looks at the meat in his hand, then just tosses it to Peter and stalks over to the fence. “No, I’m not. But I’m not interested in being pushed around, period. Don’t try and kill each other, I’m making the Nemeton keep an eye out. I’ll be back at sundown.”

* * *

The rain finally shows up while Stiles is out, in case he hadn’t realized what an incredibly terrible place this is. It’s heavy and cold, and he ends up pulling out his wings to try and cover his head, only to end up having to drag their soaked, leaden bulk after him as he trudges around the woods. He’d pull them in, except that the wetness would probably end up giving him congested lungs.

When he checks the crossroads, the slate and the rag are gone, and in their place is a fresh, blank slate and a soggy basket of herbs. He’s guessing that Gerard wants to help him out with ingredients, if he happens to be short, or get instructions if Stiles just wants to dictate.

He’s not planning on turning into a pharmacist, period, but he pauses, looking at the herbs. Then his stomach growls and Stiles snarls and cuts up a tree trunk in irritation at everything, and stalks off to get something to eat.

That done, he gives up and takes shelter long enough to get his wings dryish. He can pull them in, anyway, and _then_ he can…run around the stupid woods some more, wondering why everything here has to be so far apart. Sure, werewolves probably like to wander off, but people are even slower than him and there aren’t that many of them here, so wouldn’t they want to stick together?

Then again, he’s had about enough of learning about the way humans do things around here. “If you’re not starting feuds with each other, you must be growing gills or something,” he grumbles, pulling himself up into the nest.

As expected, Chris and Peter are both in it, but they’re pushed together against the far side, and neither of them are wearing any of the clothes, although Chris has some draped over his feet and more muffled around his hands. Peter’s gotten his ankle chains off, Stiles notes, and he’s taken the trouble to not just clean off the rest of the filth on him, but also try and tidy his hair. They both seem to have worked on cleaning up, actually.

Stiles perches at the entrance and claws disgustedly through the fur on his hindlegs, watching the water sluice over his feet and then down the Nemeton trunk. He scrubs one hand over his head, then swings his tail around and starts squeezing it through his hand to try and push out the moisture. “This place is the worst,” he says.

Chris pushes off the nest wall and onto his hands and knees. He grabs a ripped-open dress and starts to push it towards Stiles, who shakes his head as soon as he catches on. Then his eyes widen, and he shuffles hastily back as Stiles grudgingly sticks his back half through the entrance, then gives it a good shake.

“We moved the meat under the tree—” Peter starts.

“Yeah, I saw that, but I got something on the way,” Stiles says. He pulls in his butt and checks his tail, then gives up and just flops down where he is. He’s still getting the draft on him, but he doesn’t want to crawl into the bedding till he’s at least half-dry. “So, your sister, would you be really mad if I killed her?”

Peter goes very still. Chris gives him a sharp look and then shifts over; he’s still between Peter and Stiles, and it almost looks like he’s positioning himself to catch Peter if the man tries to rush forward.

“Well, did you?” Peter finally says.

“Ugh, no, in this weather?” Stiles reaches behind himself and gets hold of his tail, and then pulls it around to cuddle against his chest, hoping the body warmth will help dry it faster. “I mean, if she’s stupid enough to show up again, no promises, but last thing I want to do right now is get _more_ wet.”

Neither Peter nor Chris say anything. The wind blows up right then anyway, howling loud enough to make Chris start, then hunch in on himself. Peter doesn’t flinch but that glow flickers around his eyes for a second. He shifts in place, watching as Stiles humps himself a little farther from the entrance, and then he shrugs with very studied casualness.

“She’s my sister, and my alpha,” he says. “I’m duty-bound to object. That said—”

“Is she still your alpha if she gives you to me?” Stiles asks. “How does that work for you, anyway? Are all packs family-based, or do you have other bonds, or hey, what about blood kin versus marriage—”

Peter’s face tightens up at first, but his attempt to answer gets overridden and he shuts his mouth tightly. And then he just stares at Stiles, looking more and more bemused. “Do you—have you not run into werewolves before?”

“Not really. I’ve read a little bit, but I can’t guarantee that they were written by werewolves, and if it’s anything like what gets put out about were-jaguars and were-hyenas, then it’s probably completely useless,” Stiles says. 

Another draft hits his back and he crawls in a little more, then sits up and runs his hands over his flanks, checking dampness. It’s…sort of better, and anyway, his willpower is rapidly decreasing, so he just shoves part of the sleeping pad over the entrance and then he gets up and he tucks himself right into the thickest part of the bedding.

With three bodies, the nest is getting a little cramped. Stiles doesn’t end up squishing anybody, but they pretty much have to overlap. Chris seems to have gotten used to it, and once he’s made sure all his limbs are free, he doesn’t fight the way the nest’s curve slides him right back against Stiles. He does still eye Stiles’ tail like the thing’s snake-headed, which almost makes Stiles ask whether they get chimera and sphinx mixed up here…except then Stiles notices Peter.

The werewolf has used his claws to hike up against the side of the nest, which just about keeps him clear of the other two. It also makes him look ridiculous, all splayed like one of those lizards with the sticky sucker feet, except in reverse so he’s belly-out. And then he looks all miffed when Stiles laughs.

He lets himself drop, and a couple chips of wood come down with him. “Hey,” Stiles snaps, and Peter freezes. “Do you have any idea—no, obviously, you wouldn’t. Well, so you know _now_ , building a nest is a pain in the ass and I don’t want to do it again.”

Peter nods slowly. Each nod takes his head lower, till he’s almost doubled over on himself. He pauses, trembling a little with the strain of holding it, and then grimaces as he carefully shifts over to lie on his arms and shins. He’s still pushed up so that he’s fighting the slope of the nest.

Stiles looks at him, then at Chris, who is a lot less amused about it all than Stiles is, but who still looks a little exasperated. “So, what, do you two actually want to kill each other? You seemed fine when I came in.”

“Truce,” Peter says, with a nonchalant shrug.

“No,” Chris says curtly.

Peter looks at Chris, who pushes himself up on his arms so that they’re looking levelly at each other. Chris doesn’t look like he wanted to say it, but he doesn’t take it back or explain further, and after a moment a very mocking smile spreads over Peter’s face. He rubs absently at his hip, then slides forward. It’s sudden but fluid, almost snaky, and it goes in so low Chris’ belated swipe at him misses entirely.

Clearly swearing, even if it’s not in Latin, Chris twists back and uses Stiles to rear up. He grabs at the branches past their heads, as if to yank himself completely out of the way, and then he stops and just glares down at where Peter’s making himself comfortable, pressed up against Chris’ feet and Stiles’ legs. He holds the position for another second, then slowly eases himself down. The man’s reluctant as hell about being so close, but he tucks closer to Stiles instead of shoving at Peter.

And Peter is raising his brows at that, while nipping at his fingertips. Then he twists one finger, and it pushes his lip aside enough for Stiles to see the claw between his teeth. He seems to have a full set again, but the sheaths of most are ragged and some are even splitting. Peter yanks off one and cranes his head around to spit it out the entrance, then settles down. He’s watching Stiles out of the corner of his eye.

“None of you are normal, are you,” Stiles mutters, and then he flicks out his wing over them.

Peter’s eyes go wide and round and he smashes himself down into the nest bottom, hard enough to make the whole thing shake. Stiles snarls a warning at him and in response he just crushes himself down harder, making a soft, definitely placating burring sound.

“Oh, whatever, just, be weird with each other where it’s not going to bother me,” Stiles says. He works out an arm and presses it against the side of the nest. Concentrates a second on the Nemeton, and then decides things aren’t going to fall apart right now. Pulls his arm in, and then shifts so that he’s got his head fitted into a plush bundle of bedding.

He puts his wing down. Chris is still a little too high to fit under it, but the man squirms into place without Stiles having to say anything. Which makes him run into Peter, who’s still making that nervous noise but who slowly shifts out of the way. Also, turns in place: his hair tickles one of Stiles’ flanks and Stiles pulls up his leg. His claws happen to graze Peter and the werewolf goes very still again, then exhales slowly when Stiles resettles his leg.

Both Peter and Chris are motionless for a few seconds. Then Chris moves his hips and one foot, so Peter moves his arms and then his head. So Chris grunts and shifts an arm. It’s definitely warmer with another body, but Stiles isn’t sure it’s so much warmer as to make it worth it.

“Wouldn’t you be warmer if you shifted?” he says, gritting his teeth as Chris moves again.

“Shifted?” Peter says after a long pause.

“Yeah, you know, fur?” Stiles feels Peter’s foot get dangerously near his tail and yanks it out of the way, then thwaps it against Peter’s leg. “You’d be smaller too, right?”

“I wouldn’t be as long, but I don’t think I would actually take up less space,” Peter says slowly. He’d flinched violently from Stiles’ tail, and it feels like he’s still trying to slide back into place. He sounds both edgy, and like he’s trying not to laugh. “Chris might object, too.”

Chris does look tense, although when Stiles looks at him, he moves his shoulders in a denying way before he lifts his hands. He starts to do some kind of gesture that involves a lot of knuckle-popping twisting, and then he sighs heavily and says something in English to Peter.

“He’d also like you to know that if I shifted all the way, it might damage the nest,” Peter adds. “He has a point. I’m not a pup, my control is fine, but it is tight in here.”

“Fine,” Stiles sighs. “Fine, never mind.”

So he just tries to ignore the two of them. Their twitches do start to get further and further apart, especially Chris, who sticks his face into the bedding and appears to be trying to suffocate himself out of caring. Which is probably as good as it’s going to get, so Stiles closes his eyes.

“Stiles?” Chris says.

“Oh, _what_ ,” Stiles snaps, opening his eyes.

Chris has pushed himself up on his arm to look Stiles in the face. He looks sorry, but not like he’s going to take back speaking. “My father,” he says. “Death?”

“Dead,” Stiles corrects, and then flutters his wing in frustration as Chris stiffens. “No, he’s not, and yeah, yeah, you don’t know.”

“Past,” Chris says sharply. Then he tucks his head down into his chest. The tendons in his throat are already straining, like he’s got something he can’t quite swallow, and they stand out till the skin seems like it’s about to split. Then he exhales roughly, and his shoulders slump. “Present?”

Peter says something, in a very soft, very soothing tone, but going by how Chris suddenly snarls, the content of it isn’t very welcome. Chris twists around and the two of them spit words at each other—Peter doesn’t play gentle on the defensive, it seems—and then Chris wrenches his head back around. He presses his fists into the bedding and takes a few deep, slow breaths. Ignores whatever Peter’s saying, and looks at Stiles.

“You, gone?” he says. He’s so angry he can’t keep still, his shoulders jerking every few seconds, but for all that his voice and his gaze are steady. “Murder. My father.”

“He says if you want to be sure to get out—” Peter starts, in a long-suffering tone.

Stiles pushes his head into his arm, and also, crooks his wing slightly so that he can stab down with either edge if he needs to. He lets the feathers there go to metal, holding the wing very still so there won’t be a rattle to alert either of the other two. “Well, I wasn’t going to bring this up in b—honestly, at all, but I already poisoned your father.”

Peter inhales sharply, while Chris goes as still and stony as any Medusa victim. Except for the man’s eyes. They move rapidly back and forth, looking at Stiles, and then they start to glitter. They’re getting wet.

Chris abruptly twists his head away. He rubs his hand over his face, and over his eyes, he presses his fingers in so hard that Stiles wonders if the man’s trying to gouge them out. Down at his feet, Peter…touches him or something, and Chris yanks himself up and away from it. He nearly cracks his shoulder into Stiles’ wing—Stiles barely turns it to feathers in time—and then he knots himself into a little ball. Snaps at Peter, who snarls back.

“Oh, for…” Stiles shifts his wing away, then starts to push himself up. He can’t hear the rain anymore, and if that’s stopped, he might as well just sleep _on_ the damn nest, for all the rest he’s getting here.

“Stiles,” Chris says. He lets go of his knees and levers up the top part of his body, shaking his head and getting in Stiles’ way. “Stiles, Stiles—”

“ _What_.” Which Stiles says with fangs, and growl laced into his voice.

He can feel Peter going belly-down beside them. Chris doesn’t—he’s a human, for all that he seems to have picked up werewolf habits—but he does wince and fold his limbs tightly close to himself. He looks hesitantly at Stiles, chewing on his lip. His eyes are still a little wet, and slightly red at the edges.

Then he starts to shift himself downwards, very slowly. Once his head is fully below Stiles’ chin, he stops. Takes half a breath, and then carefully shuffles towards Stiles. He stops and glances up, and then shuffles over till he has to lift his head or else ram it into Stiles’ chest.

“Cold?” he says.

“Every damn _second_ I’m here,” Stiles says irritably. But he gets it, and yeah, honestly, he doesn’t want to go outside.

He hooks his arm over Chris’ neck and pulls the man in, then lies back down. And if Chris is going to be like that, well, Stiles is going to nudge and push and prod till Chris is fitting how it’s comfortable for _Stiles_ , and enough of leaving it to this pair of idiots to figure that out.

Chris grunts and hisses, but otherwise he’s cooperative. Is a little tense, but once a couple seconds go by and he realizes Stiles is done, he starts to relax. Some. He’s still clearly not about to fall asleep any time soon.

“He’s not actually dead yet,” Stiles finally says. “It’ll happen, but I want to get out of here first. Last thing I need is some damn villagers blaming me, trying to set fire to the whole forest.”

“You’re sure they won’t do that anyway?” Peter says, reminding them he’s there. He pauses so Chris can finish some angry muttering. “If Gerard thinks he’s getting a curse and it doesn’t work, well, he’s not a man known for his restraint.”

“More like, if he thinks he’s getting a cure and it’s just got to purge him of his illness first, so he’s going to feel worse before he feels better. But hey, the forest ends up on fire anyway, it’s on me.” Stiles looks at Chris, who seems oddly relieved by this, and then he rolls his shoulder so his wing has room to fold out. “And no, I haven’t done anything about your sister yet, all right? Now can we go to sleep?”

“I don’t know if she’ll leave you be, even with Gerard dead,” Peter says, slow and thoughtful, like Stiles hadn’t said anything.

So instead of shifting out a wing, and settling down for some rest, Stiles sighs and looks over at the werewolf. “Seriously, _what_ is her problem? Fine, she wants revenge, but I’m not—”

“It’s not vengeance, Stiles, it’s pride,” Peter sighs. He drops so that he’s temporarily hidden by Chris, then rises again, rubbing at his temple. He’s resentful, sure, but there’s a trace of grief under that, and it’s so awkward on Peter that it must not be something he feels very often. “I didn’t sleep with the Argent girl, did I, but I didn’t notice her fool of a husband doing it, so I didn’t help her. My nieces and nephew could’ve died in that fire, but they didn’t, and they’re _still_ half his, so they didn’t help her either. You could have helped her, but you’ve gone and done it without her, so—”

“So it’s hate,” Stiles says.

Peter pushes himself up. He looks at Stiles for a long, silent moment, his face smooth and still.

“I’ve tried to kill her,” he finally says. “I couldn’t. I…I would not go after you if you did.”

At that, Chris stirs, craning his head around to look at Peter. The corners of Peter’s mouth twist nearly into a sneer and a hard, mocking glint comes into Peter’s eyes, but Chris isn’t actually saying anything and that seems to confuse Peter. He shifts back, towards a defensive position, and then he grimaces. Turns his head away, and curls up with his back to them.

Stiles keeps an eye out, but even when his wing flicks over Peter, that back doesn’t so much as twitch. And Chris is settling down again, and is quiet, and Stiles just decides he’ll take that much.

* * *

Next morning is chilly but the sky looks clear of any clouds. Stiles takes one of the shirts with him as he climbs up to the top of the nest, draping it over his shoulders and back. He shifts out his wings and then shakes them into the breeze. They’re still a little damp and for the nth time, he wonders why magical creatures can’t come with instant drying power.

The only upside is that soggy feathers make it easier to spot where they aren’t lying right. Before all the werewolf drama yesterday, he’d managed to get through one wing and most of the other, but he checks them both over again, starting with where the new primaries are growing in.

Wing feathers, especially primaries, are so critical that they’re the only parts which don’t heal immediately. They take time and energy to get right, and even then, sometimes you’ve got to yank out a half-grown feather that’s coming in crooked. So when Stiles sees a nice straight line of tufts emerging, he breathes a silent sigh of relief.

Chris had been up almost in the same breath as Stiles, but Peter had been pretty sluggish. It’d been a little funny, watching him fold his arms over his head and rub his belly against the bedding, just like any number of sleeping dogs Stiles had watched before. And then he’d realized or remembered where he was, and he’d gone still and watchful, with that arm covering everything but his eyes.

Stiles had actually thought Peter was just going to hole up in the nest, but he’d come out a couple minutes later, keeping close to the trunk. Nearly hugged it when he realized Stiles wasn’t on the ground, but then Chris—in the middle of starting a fire for breakfast, having gotten the hang of striking sparks off a broken primary—had pointed Stiles out. Peter had looked up and then had kept looking, to the point that Stiles considered doing his grooming somewhere else.

He’s still looking, although he’s at least sat down by the fire, next to Chris, and is making an attempt to mask it. He and Chris are pretty quiet, though they’ve had a couple exchanges. They’re still sharp with each other, but every time it gets really heated, they’ll scoot to opposite sides of the fire, and then immediately start drifting towards each other. It’s like watching migrating sphinxes try to give each other the silent treatment; flocking patterns and wind never really let that work out.

“Stiles?” Chris calls up. He’s pointing to what’s left of the aurochs.

Still enough for another day, but Peter’s got an appetite almost as good as a sphinx. Stiles also has to admit that he personally is getting bored with aurochs, and he knows humans need a more varied diet, even if Chris hasn’t been complaining.

“How big are the fish here?” he says when he’s come down. He cuts out a marrowbone and snaps it open, and then slurps out the marrow.

Peter’s gone over to wash up at the watering hole, but he turns around at that. He lets Chris fumble through some hand gestures. “Salmon, but they aren’t in season right now. Do you—”

“Yeah, I know about salmon. We catch them out of the ocean,” Stiles says, cracking another marrowbone.

The information gets Peter interested, but his eyes keep dipping to the marrow. It broke with the bone so Stiles has to use a claw to fish out the halves, and when a little juice drips off the end of one, Peter’s pupils widen. He _does_ look a little sharp: still plenty of muscle on him, but at the edges, like the collarbone and the knees and the wrists, his bones are jutting. Would be fine on a lean flyer like a sphinx, but Stiles is guessing that it’s a bad sign for a werewolf.

Stiles is getting full so he flips that piece to Peter, who snatches it like he’s plucking a bubble from the air. Very graceful, and then he looks at it like he isn’t quite sure if that’s his hand. His eyes drop and then come back up as he smiles at Stiles, all pleasant and loose, but with eyes that are too light to be genuine. “Thank you,” he says.

“I think I saw a big lake that way,” Stiles says, nodding. “Would that have anything?”

Peter toys with the marrow. He still looks all nice but he’s clearly puzzled as to why Stiles is asking about it. “You want to fish? You—wouldn’t you rather—”

“I don’t just eat meat on the hoof, do you?” Stiles says. He pulls out the other bit of marrow, sucks it down, and then tosses the bones aside and starts digging himself out a big strip of belly meat. “I guess some berries, too, and I saw this boar rooting up a tuber, can you eat that sort of thing?”

That’s to Chris, who looks up from the meat he’s cooking. He pauses, then shrugs and points to his eyes: he’ll have to see it. Fair enough.

“The lake is a fair ways off, is all,” Peter says. “It’d take most of the day to get there and back. On foot.”

Which makes Stiles look at him again. He smiles back and he’s got his head straight up, eyes dead on Stiles, which is confidence across races, but his shoulders are dropped down and tight where they are, and his hands are resting on his knees with the fingers curled in, probably to hide his claws.

“So this book, whatever, where your sister found out about sphinxes,” Stiles says. “You read it too? You both speak Latin.”

“And we take down pheasant and other birds on occasion, it’s not as if I haven’t seen wings up close before. I’m not threatening you, Stiles,” Peter says. He’s caught onto the hands thing and raises them so Stiles can see the claw-less tips. “I know if you don’t want me, then I’m as good as dead. But Talia said she’d come and see you again, and she does not like to be kept waiting. She also would know what those missing primaries mean.”

“Which means I’m supposed to stick around till she shows up? She didn’t even say she’d come here.” Though even as Stiles says it, he knows he’s being stupid and petty. Peter has a point.

Peter also seems to have a lot more on his mind than just reminding Stiles he actually has to take the local politics seriously now. “What you did to Gerard, is it something that would be immediately obvious?” he asks. “Because if Talia just hears that he’s gotten a cure—”

“Then I’ll just tell her what I actually did. You can’t just have books on sphinxes, if you’ve got that, you probably have herbals and I shouldn’t _have_ to teach you the fine art of poisoning,” Stiles says. Then he looks at Chris. “Hey, speaking of, is that why you warned me off their house and your father’s?”

Chris does not look like he wants to answer that, but when he does, he does it through Peter. Sure, he also adds a bitten-off comment that’s clearly something along the lines of, ‘don’t put words in my mouth,’ but it’s still surprising.

“He says yes, because he didn’t want either of them trying to hunt you. His father and we have probably the biggest libraries in the area period, let alone the most books on supernatural creatures, and he didn’t want them to get any more interested in you than they already were,” Peter says, brows rising. “Although I’d like to—excuse me.” He and Chris have a rapid exchange that ends in Chris irritably biting into a barbecued piece of meat. “I’d like to add that what my sister does right now isn’t reflective of most werewolves.”

“So you wouldn’t hunt me,” Stiles says dryly. “Nice of you.”

Peter shrugs, offers up a closed-lipped smile. “If it was on the table, I’d much rather learn about you and your kind. I’m interested in—” he gets away from himself a little there, and shows a brief flicker of annoyance as he pulls back “—but my sister, unfortunately, takes precedence.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “What, you want me to promise to kill her or something? Are you going to talk about how I have to do it _right now_? Look, this stuff I keep getting dragged into, so I know I accidentally started some of it, but it’s really—”

“She will _kill_ you, Stiles,” Peter snaps. He drops forward onto his hands and knees, and Stiles can hear Chris hissing and scrambling to get behind Stiles. His fangs show and his eyes are glowing, but for all his agitation, his legs aren’t yet into lunging position. “Talia’s insane. She doesn’t even want her own children around anymore.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got that part,” Stiles says shortly. And it’s not that he’s thrilled about that. Those kids had looked pretty terrified, and the young woman, who he guesses is an older sibling, clearly isn’t strong enough to fend off her mother. But he’s been rushed into one thing after another here, and he just has this prickling feeling right now. “So what, you have a plan?”

“I have a couple suggestions,” Peter says, just a little too quickly.

Of course he does. Stiles doesn’t need Chris’ sudden raised voice to spot that one. He just drops the aurochs, leaps the fence, and heads off into the woods.

* * *

Stiles is both annoyed and relieved to discover he’s building up stamina for running around on four feet. He makes it to the edge of the forest without getting too out of breath, and then he spends some time prodding around the outskirts of the little town, both getting that back and also trying to figure out what to do next.

Chris had not explained what all of the buildings in the town were for, and Stiles sort of regrets not grabbing the man on his way out. He’s pretty sure at this point that Chris isn’t going to run off and muster up a mob and come at him. But whatever Chris’ father or Talia are up to, it hasn’t spread to the general population because they’re still going about their normal business.

After a couple hours’ spying, Stiles figures out which buildings are for food storage. He reluctantly shifts to two-legged form to sneak into one, because it lets him squeeze in through an unlocked upper window instead of having to break a lock. Gets their version of bread ( _very_ dense and unappealingly dark, maybe their lack of good bakers is responsible for the homicidal behavior) and some onions and what he thinks are a type of yam, and then makes a quick exit.

He doesn’t exactly stop by Chris’ father’s house on the way out, but he does take a route that lets him see the place from a tree a few yards in from the forest line. It’s one of the biggest in the town, made of stone where the others are mostly wood frames, and it has a number of armed men regularly walking around it, or going in and out of its doors. They don’t look like they’re in a rush.

It takes longer for Stiles to get back to the Nemeton, because he also checks the crossroads. Nothing there. He’s guessing Gerard has holed up to wait and see.

Gerard’s son has done the same, or so says Peter when Stiles jumps over the fence. “I didn’t kill him,” Peter says tersely. He points at the tree. “He went up to sleep.”

Stiles drops the berry branches he grabbed along the way. The Nemeton hadn’t cried out or anything, and he does hear Chris’ heartbeat up in the nest. It’s a little slower than it’s been on previous nights. “Is he tired or something?”

“I suppose,” Peter says. He pauses, then turns away, not really hiding his sour smile. “We…had a very energetic discussion while you were gone, and he’s only human.”

“If that’s an invitation to pry, I think I might take a nap, too.” The ground is still pretty soggy, especially right up by the Nemeton, since there isn’t much grass around it. Stiles hikes up his bundle of food and picks his way from root to root, grimacing as the mud oozes around his paw pads. 

He stuffs the food up in the nest. Chris _is_ up there, curled up way in the back, with as much of the bedding pulled up and over him as possible. He stirs at the noise but just grunts and burrows deeper in, so Stiles ducks back down and then climbs up on top of the nest to clean his paws and spread his wings in the sun.

They are _still_ damp, thanks to the clammy air around here. Stiles preens them between his fingers, but that can only do so much, and finally he just gives up and sprawls out to let the sun do its thing.

That’s when he spots Peter. The werewolf’s clinging to the side of the nest, only the top half of his head showing, and when their eyes meet, Peter sucks in his breath sharply. Hesitates, and then carefully pulls himself up onto the nest, keeping well clear of Stiles.

He’s also very precise about where he puts his hands and feet, testing the branches before he commits his full weight to them. Since most of them are willow, pretty much all of them bend, even when they’re perfectly sturdy, and it takes him a good ten minutes before he finally finds a big enough spot to sit down on. He sits like a person, ass down and legs crossed, even though all of his claws are out.

Just then a stiff breeze catches up under Stiles’ wings. He lets it lift them, even though with the bare patches it feels like tilting without a center of gravity, so that the air will riffle down to the skin, and one of his remaining primaries comes within a few inches of Peter’s face. The werewolf looks at it with open fascination. His hands come off the nest a little, then plant themselves firmly back as he abruptly shakes himself.

“It’d help me if you killed Talia, but it’s also true that she resents your presence here,” Peter says. He shifts from side to side, watching Stiles, and then slowly folds himself so he’s in the same pose, belly-down with his knees tucked under, resting on his forearms. “She’s alpha, you’re intruding, and on top of that, the first she learned of you, you were in contact with Gerard.”

“Alpha’s what you call your leader?” Stiles says.

Peter blinks hard. “Yes. We’re—we live in packs. Alphas lead. They’re the strongest, they have powers the rest of us don’t—the rest are betas, or if they’re packless, omegas. You’ve seen our eyes, haven’t you? Alphas have red ones.”

“That other one. The one who tried to save you.” Stiles cocks his brow when Peter’s mouth tightens. “Well, she had red eyes, too.”

“That’s Laura, Talia’s eldest. She’s…yes, she’s an alpha too, but she’s far too young to be taking on her mother, and on top of that, she’s got her sister and brother to think about,” Peter says. He does not really sound that sympathetic. Then he realizes Stiles has noticed. The corners of his mouth twitch like he’s just going to smile, and then he makes a low, angry noise instead. “She knows they’re next, now that Talia’s finally gone and kicked me out. No more uncle scapegoat to take the—probably wishes she’d listened to me, and helped me try to kill Talia.”

Stiles raises his brows again. “You said you couldn’t do it, and she can’t do it either. You really think the both of you added up would do it? Math doesn’t always work out like you want it.”

“Oh, do you have experience here? You sphinxes are supposed to know all things, aren’t you? But it’s very different to put that into practice.” Peter’s lips peel back as he talks, baring nearly all his teeth. He’s got just as nice a set as Chris, Stiles idly notes. 

The wind catches Stiles’ wings again. Once they’ve risen, he shifts the feathers to metal and then back, very quickly, so that the air will get trapped when they go fluffy. And honestly, also so they’ll rattle.

Peter’s eyes widen at the noise. He’s very still, and then he very slowly relaxes. “It’s a sore point,” he says. He pauses. “I suppose it wouldn’t have worked. Even like this, Talia’s too strong. But at least we’d have _done_ something. Laura only wants to hide, she doesn’t seem to understand that that’s no good when the thing after you _wants_ to drive you to ground.”

“Better to die horribly than die…hiding and horribly?” Stiles says.

“Better to—” Peter starts heatedly. He catches himself, then exhales roughly. Puts his head down on his arms. “Well, she could’ve heard me out. But no, I’m as bad as Talia, just wanting to kill everything, I’m always trying to get them killed when at this point that’s really just a matter of timing.”

If he didn’t sound so savage about it, he’d be petty. _That’s_ obviously not just a sore point. “Well, are you?” Stiles has to ask.

Peter looks angrily over, then away, out over the woods. His eyes are almost glassy, he’s so angry, and for a moment there are strange shadows moving under his skin, especially at his face and hands. Fighting down a shift, Stiles guesses.

He’s quiet for a long time, just staring blankly at the trees. When he’s not thinking about it, he shifts position, off his belly and back onto his legs, knees sliding out from under him and arms straightening. He’s younger than Chris, Stiles thinks. Maybe. Some were races can be hard to peg. Anyway, he’s handsome by human measures. Most sphinxes would probably find him a touch too heavily-built, but he carries it gracefully, and Stiles admits that _he_ likes the way the muscles of his arms and shoulders flex. And the blue eyes, even rarer than Chris’ grey, even furious they’re very striking. Almost the color of the sky down south.

“At some point Chris will remember enough Latin to tell you,” Peter mutters, mostly to himself. Then he looks at Stiles. “I’ve done my fair share of terrible things. We weren’t a happy pack even before Talia’s fool husband took up with the Argent girl, and I did have a hand in that. But for my sister to claim that I _helped_ set that fire, I helped kill our own blood—never mind her husband, he deserved it. But the rest of them—no. And for Laura to even wonder—”

“Were you not there? That why ?” Stiles asks.

Peter’s mouth twists. “No,” he says after a long moment. “No. I wasn’t there. Laura wasn’t, Derek and Cora weren’t—we were out. _I_ was taking them out on a day trip, instead of at home, because _I_ was in trouble and Talia was saddling me with her children again, as if they didn’t know they were being put out so their parents could tear each other up.”

He drags his claws over the nest, peeling up strips of bark from the interwoven branches. Stiles clicks his tongue without thinking, like he’d do with a fledgling, and Peter starts. He looks a little dazed, as if just waking up, and then he tilts his head quizzically at Stiles.

But he doesn’t ask anything, and after they’ve just stared at each other for a few minutes, Stiles shrugs and pushes up on his arms. There’s a kink in his back—the wind keeps twisting his wings, since the uneven feathers means the air flow isn’t smooth—and he twists it out, then flares his wings out as wide as they’ll go. They buffet in the wind, pulling him up so he has to sink his claws into the nest, and then he lifts the wing tips to let out the breeze.

Almost dry, he thinks, feeling over one. He looks overhead and checks out the angle of the sun, and then he’s considering climbing down to eat when Peter clears his throat.

“Do—is that different for you?” Peter asks. He’s a little hesitant about it, angling himself away from Stiles. “Do sphinxes live together? Everything I’ve read—”

“Well, you don’t have to stay in each other’s slipstream all the time in order to consider yourself pack, do you?” Stiles snorts. “But yeah, we live in groups. And it’s kind of frowned upon to kill your family.”

“I didn’t do it,” Peter says sharply. “I didn’t—I had nothing to do with Kate Argent, or her father’s plans. The _one_ time—”

“Did I say I agreed with your sister, or your niece? Or honestly, anybody around here? Seriously, I just…all I wanted was a damn blanket,” Stiles mutters. He flaps his wings again, then shifts them away and rolls his weight from hind foot to foot. “Because it is cold, and wet, and your trees are just—giant needles sticking out of the ground, and even your Nemeton is touched in the head. Don’t think I’m fighting your fight just because I’m doing what I have to in order to get out of here.”

Stiles jumps down to the ground. Chris is still in the nest, but he’s at the entrance with his legs dangling out, working through the food Stiles brought back. He maybe could have heard some of the conversation, but if he did, he doesn’t show it. Once he’s over his surprise, he just tears off a hunk of bread and then holds it out towards Stiles.

Bread is not something Stiles is normally fond of, and this kind of dark, brick-like bread, definitely not, but he takes it because…he doesn’t know. Because Chris is holding it out and Stiles is still not quite sure what he’s going to do, and he might as well.

There’s a thump on the ground behind Stiles, who’s half-whirled before Peter even has all his weight down. Peter’s in a crouch anyway and he drops even further, which is sensible. But then he rolls onto his back and tips up his chin, his arms stiffly to either side, hands actually angled _away_ from himself, which is…very awkward, both to look at and for him to do, and which is a little nonsensical. That is, Stiles recognizes it for a gesture of submission, it’s one that’s common among weres other than werewolves, but just because he recognizes it doesn’t mean he feels it.

On top of that, Peter keeps looking at him like Stiles is supposed to _do_ something. Stiles tosses the piece of bread from hand to hand, then sinks into a squat next to the werewolf. Not that he has any more of a clue, but he’s stalling, seeing if Peter reacts.

Peter does breathe in sharply, but otherwise nothing. So Stiles…well, he might as well try getting closer. He pushes over onto his hands and then bends down. Pauses, watching Peter’s pupils grow, and then paws at Peter’s hair, near his left ear.

It’s weird. It’s not really what sphinxes do, and judging from Peter’s face, it’s completely confusing to werewolves, too. But it’s just the way Peter is lying…and Stiles just blows out his breath and goes for it.

He grabs Peter by the shoulder and then flips him over onto his belly. Peter snarls and strikes out with his arms, trying to rise, but he can’t lever his torso high enough and his hands slip out from under him. He’s breathing fast and when Stiles pins his shoulders, he starts to pant and then to catch his breath in the back of his throat, close to panic.

“Stiles!” Chris says, and _he_ sounds afraid too, for some reason.

So Stiles was just going to groom Peter a little, see if that was it, but Chris yelling and Peter’s still fighting under him and he’s already frustrated and just, he just gives up and presses breast-down against Peter’s back, rubbing his weight in between the shoulderblades. Which is all sphinx but he doesn’t exactly have time to figure out what works across races.

Well, what he’s doing doesn’t scare them _more_ , anyway. Peter goes still and his breathing starts to slow, and after another couple seconds, he twists his head around and looks at Stiles. He’s definitely confused but he doesn’t…Stiles stops rubbing. “Is that how you kill each other?” he says. “Back of the head?”

“No, not…you go with what works.” For a second Peter is debating something with himself, and then he just sighs. Puts his head cheek-down, pushes his hand out. He lifts it and clicks his claws together. “These. Back of neck. You can get into someone’s mind.”

“Oh, like telepathy?” Stiles says, but Peter’s frowning. “Memory? Is this one of those alpha things?”

“No,” Peter says after a long second. “Well, they tend to be better at it, because they’ve got more chances to practice, but…no.”

“Good to know,” Stiles says. Not that he was planning to let a werewolf get at him there, anyway; first rule of aerial battles, do _not_ let somebody climb up and behind. But it’s good to know that…he’s not going to have to change his fighting style, he supposes. “Interesting. Were-hyenas don’t do that. I guess you could look at were-cats, but they use their stare…what are you doing?”

Peter’s making a quiet, throaty, repetitive noise. It’s not a purr, it’s not satisfied so much as inviting, and he keeps doing it for a second after Stiles asks. Then he blinks hard. “Well, what were you doing?”

Stiles was…well, since they weren’t going to fight, Stiles had sprawled out on top of Peter and had started combing his fingers through Peter’s hair, like he’d do for a flockmate (except he’d do it with their wings, but obviously that’s not an option here). He supposes he had been letting his hand drift down and tickle Peter’s neck, too, but he didn’t think that was a thing for werewolves. With what he’s seen so far, he thought throats were just about fighting, or calling that off.

“What were _you_ doing, jumping after me?” he says.

Peter presses his lips together, and then sighs again. “Apologizing. I am—I’m sorry. You barely know anyone, and what you’ve seen is unpleasant, and…your side is your own. Nobody here has any call on you.”

“You know, when you all leave that aside, you’re actually kind of interesting. I think I’ve learned more about werewolves than I picked up in my whole life before,” Stiles says after a moment. He pushes off of Peter and then sits back on his haunches to smooth down the fur on his hindlegs and tail. “But the weather’s still terrible.”

Peter laughs. It’s a little short. He pulls his hands under himself and lifts onto his forearms. Pauses, and then comes over at a belly-crawl. Right as his head touches Stiles’ leg, he lifts up and then he…pushes his cheek against Stiles’ chest, high up on the left, right under the collarbone. Lets it rest for a second, and then presses it slowly up till he’s slotting his head into the curve of Stiles’ neck.

At that point Stiles grabs his arm, and then switches to the back of his neck, because that is pushing it. Peter stills where he is. Then he turns his face so that his mouth isn’t touching Stiles. Just his nose, and he’s taking deep, slow, sort of raspy whuffing breaths through it. 

Then he moves back. He looks to the side—Chris got down from the nest a while ago, but he stayed well clear so Stiles didn’t bother to turn towards him—and then down. “Stiles. The—my nieces and my nephew,” he says. “If she offers them—”

“I wanted a blanket in the first place, and even if that had been what I wanted, I really don’t want them,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes.

Peter looks up. He’s oddly tense. “Would you take them anyway?”

Stiles blinks hard. “Why?”

“Strength,” Chris says. So Stiles looks over, and Chris is staring at Peter very hard, and a little like he’s not sure exactly who Peter is.

“If she kills them, she’ll just get stronger. Especially Laura,” Peter explains. He glances at Chris again, a sour, amused air touching him, and then he looks back at Stiles. “I had my differences with Laura, and with Derek and Cora, but I don’t want Talia to have them. Not now. I’m…I’m asking, only. No demands.”

“Then wouldn’t you have gotten stronger if you’d killed them?” Stiles says. Which gets both Peter and Chris staring at him like they have no idea where he got it from. “What, is this another one of those alpha-only—”

“No. No, it’s not, it’s just—” Peter laughs again. It’s a lot rawer, and gets Chris moving back towards the tree trunk. “You don’t even know _anything_ , you haven’t lived with this, and yet—if you _were_ interested, Stiles. I wonder. But—Stiles, I couldn’t kill my sister. I couldn’t do it. Even with everything she’s done, I can’t. I—werewolves, we need a pack. Laura and the children, Talia might think she can take everything—but they’re pack. I took that for granted before. I admit that. But now—Talia wants to hate, well, what I want is to _live_. You understand?”

“Not really,” Stiles says, honestly. He shifts around so he’s got a clear line if Peter moves, but Peter just…laughs a third time, more wildly, and then puts his head down and presses it between his hands.

“Stiles,” Chris suddenly says. He’s edged up from the tree, triangulated between Stiles and Peter, although he is slowly working towards Peter. Sideways, keeping a line open to jump away. He stops when he’s a few feet away, then sits down. He points at Peter, sighs, and makes a little show out of folding his hands patiently over his lap.

“And if I need to do something now?” Stiles asks.

Chris looks very frustrated, and then points at himself. He’s starting to get some real nuance into the scowling.

“Oh. Well, thanks,” Stiles says. He pauses, then shrugs and just goes over the fence.

* * *

It’s well into the afternoon at that point, but Stiles has a feeling he won’t be kept waiting too much longer. He doesn’t go too far from the Nemeton, although he does go out of hearing range for anything up to a battle-cry. Then he sets up in a tree. Eats the piece of bread Chris gave him, since he’s still got it.

The bread is not as bad as it looks, but it’s definitely not making the place any better for him. He’s tracking a herd of deer by ear when he picks up a lone wolf coming through the woods.

Stiles goes out to meet Talia, leaping from tree to tree till he hears her snarl. “He’s dying,” he calls out. “Well, fine, he was already dying, but he’s going a lot faster now. It’s not a cure, it’s a poison.”

“He should already be _dead_ ,” she snarls at him. “Is this how your kind does things? You play around like the cat that gave you your back half, and then sit back and watch as if we have nothing better to do but die for your amusement?”

“I’m not amused. I don’t look amused, do I?” Stiles says.

Talia comes right up to the bottom of the tree where he’s perched. She tilts her head till it’s almost parallel with the ground, and then she grins at him. Her upper fangs almost reach past her chin.

And then she punches the trunk. 

Cracks it in two, and the tree takes out two more on its way down, and Stiles is _really_ not amused now. There’s not another tree with large enough branches within range. He could just springboard from trunk to trunk till he found one, but then he’d look like he’s running away, and he’s pretty sure that’s a bad impression to be giving Talia.

So he drops to the ground, on all fours, facing her. She’s at the very edge of his leaping range, and he’s fairly sure he’s firmly out of hers, but they still circle each other for…way longer than Stiles wants to, but Talia won’t stop moving and so he can’t.

He’s just thinking they’re going to close in when she suddenly sets back onto her feet. She grins at him again. “Did you kill Peter?”

“Considering what you’re trying to do to the last people who killed a family member?” Stiles says.

Talia keeps smiling, but she pulls her lips down over her teeth. “He _is_ my brother.”

“You’d know,” is what Stiles finally goes with. Because really, even if he knew these people, and knew all the things they’ve apparently done with and to each other, he still doesn’t think he’d want to try and sort out her logic. “So, Gerard, he thinks he’s being cured by the stuff I gave him, but he’s not. Also, he thinks the last step is to get bitten by a werewolf.”

That smile swipes off Talia’s face as if it’d be slapped away. She looks at him, all coiled power, but her eyes are distant and glassy, like Peter staring from the top of the nest. They look a lot alike in that moment: features that should be beautiful if they weren’t so chillingly stone. 

“Any werewolf?” she says.

“Well, did you have somebody in mind besides you?” Stiles says. “You didn’t seem that confident about—”

“My children,” Talia says tersely. Her lips writhe, lifting slightly from her teeth, as she speaks. “I suppose.”

“You should know,” Stiles can’t help saying.

Her eyes go red and there’s a very nasty, very twisty ripple under her skin from shoulders down to her bared claws. For a second he thinks he’s going to get yet another lesson in why he really needs to keep his mouth on a tighter rein, and then…and then she laughs at him.

“Yes, I should, shouldn’t I.” She’s almost casual, the lighthearted way she says it. “You pick a mate, you breed and give birth, you raise them…and then it’s so strange, isn’t it. How they turn on you. They _miss_ him, that traitorous bastard. They went and they cried for him. I see no blood of mine in that.”

“So it doesn’t matter,” Stiles says after a moment. “What werewolf. Because that isn’t actually how it works. It’s straight-up poison, a werewolf bite won’t do anything.”

That, thankfully, jogs Talia out of her eerie little reverie. “It could turn him.”

“I noticed that you’re a _were_ wolf.” If Stiles is going to get into a fight after all, he figures it might as well be for pointing out stupidity, considering that the bite is one of the things everyone knows about werewolves. “He could turn and it’ll still kill him. Believe me, I know my herbs, and nothing’s going to stop it once he takes it. Although hey, if you really want to be sure—”

“I’m sure that he won’t die by your hand. He doesn’t deserve that mercy,” Talia spits out.

She gets up and starts to turn, _that_ sure of herself. Then she stops. Looks back, with a little flicker in her eyes that Stiles is starting to recognize as madness.

“I know you’re grounded, sphinx, I saw your wings,” she says. “And I don’t forget that you took his gift.”

“I took yours,” Stiles says sharply.

“Yes, you did.” Talia turns back and takes a step towards him, then leans onto the balls of her feet like her skin’s barely enough to hold back the anger boiling in her. “My brother. Well, he’s under my hand, he’s mine, just as my children are mine. You can’t take him.”

“You _gave_ —”

“And I take back, when it pleases me,” Talia snaps. “You’re on my lands, you’ve come between me and _my_ family, and I will not have that. Never again.”

And then she stalks off. Stiles doesn’t even have his wings out, but for a long time afterward, he feels like he’s just flown through an electric storm and he’s still got the sparks sifting through his feathers. When he runs his hands down his flanks, the fur there is stiff as pins.

He’s got to sit there for a while, anyway. He doesn’t want to leave till he knows she won’t be doubling back to get at him, and she’s taking her time. No rush there, queen of the woods and all that. Gerard happens to die before she shows up, she’d probably throw a fit at his timing.

That’s way too likely, actually, and Stiles grimaces and pushes the thought out of his head. Then he gives his fur a last brush, and turns towards the town.

* * *

Stiles lucks out and the local temple, church, whatever, has a boarded-up attic that’s easy to sneak into from the woods, and that nobody ever uses, given how the dust is ankle deep over its floor. He doesn’t quite have a straight line of sight to Gerard’s house, but he has the whole of the one road running through the town, including where it peters out into the forest.

It’s a small town but the people seem to do most of their business out on the road, and they keep it pretty bustling up until about an hour before sundown (just as well, since the attic sadly has no books and he’d be bored to death otherwise). Then they start to scatter to their homes for dinner. The road’s still got regular passersby for another few hours, and then it goes quiet.

Night falls. The sky is still clear and the moon is—a good week off the full moon, thankfully. Anyway, there’s plenty of light. Easy to pick out the werewolf, if you know where to look.

It’s just Talia. She’s in wolf form but she still walks the same way, even creeping along a stone wall. It’s like every step she takes is stamping her will on the ground.

She darts between two other buildings, and then goes over the wall surrounding Gerard’s house. Stiles strains his ears and picks out the gurgle of a slashed throat, and then another. Then the dull thunk of claws into wood. She’s going in through a window.

Predictable after that. Shouting, banging, things breaking, lights flaring and then going out as candles get dropped. A fire catches on in a lower window, though after a couple minutes it goes out, or is put out. Dark wet stuff splatters against an upper window. And then there’s a wild, triumphant howl, right as a mass of armed men rush in the front and back doors. 

A huge, black form bursts through that splattered upper window. It nearly clears the walled backyard in a single leap, and after it’s over the wall, it makes straight for the forest. The men follow it, of course.

Stiles makes his way out of the attic and back to the forest, and then around the town so that he can pick up the trail. He’s well behind the stragglers in the hunting party, on purpose, because he might not know werewolves but he does know were-cats, were-hyenas, and also a whole bunch of non-were predatory animals, and he doubts that tactics change much.

He’s proven right when he finds a fresh werewolf trail crossing over the hunting party’s, doubling behind it and then heading off at a tangent. The werewolf is wounded, though it hides that for some ways. And then, as if it just stopped caring, it’s suddenly leaving thick swathes of bloodstains in plain view. There aren’t any hunter tracks around so Stiles assumes the werewolf—well, obviously it’s Talia—was waiting to pull out arrows or things like that, and finally felt safe enough to do so.

She leads him straight to a charred ruin in the woods. It’d once been a very large house, rivaling anything in town, but all that’s left now are the great beams that had made up its frame, one wall, and the stonework. Stone foundation, Stiles thinks at first, and then he sees Talia disappear into it, and realizes there’s got to be a basement.

He hangs back from following her, because getting trapped underground with an insane, bad-tempered, wounded werewolf would be a terrible idea, and that’s also a good move because she comes storming back up only a few minutes later. She slews across the stone floor, snarling and looking furiously from side to side. Looking for something—Stiles quickly checks to make sure he’s covered up his trail and he’s fine. He’s downwind of her, and he even went through the trouble of dragging himself through every smelly plant patch along the way.

She’s not sniffing the air anyway. She keeps snarling and barking, getting louder and louder, and then she rears back and howls. It’s deafening, and it’s full of rage and shock, and it’s clearly a demand. Stiles doesn’t know wolf howls but he doesn’t have to, in order for that to get across.

Talia howls again, and then crouches back from some invisible opponent, jaws parted so froth can run out over her teeth and drip onto the ground. Her head swings from side to side a last time, and then she takes off at a run.

Stiles keeps back as he follows, even though he’s starting to have a sinking feeling about what’s happened. That feeling gets worse when Talia stops, picks up something from the ground and then flings it from her. It’s a chain, Stiles can smell blood on it from one of her younger children, and after Talia tosses it aside, she keeps heading away from town.

She’s also not heading straight for the Nemeton, but for all Stiles knows, she just doesn’t remember exactly where it is. She’s still leaving blood on the ground, and now it’s mixed with a foul-smelling, tarry black substance. And yeah, insane on top of that, likelihood that she’s thinking straight is extremely low.

So he swings wide of her, getting up a hillside, and then he takes the chance and leaps high over the canopy. That stiff wind is still around and it pushes his glide—which is so wobbly, what with his patchy feathers, that he kind of sees what the humans mean about motion sickness—far enough so that he goes over Talia completely and then a good few miles beyond.

Stiles comes down in the trees with a direct line to the Nemeton. Also, damn it, near the hunting party. They’re still going strong and he sees the torches turn towards him, and then he gets an idea. He gives the tree he’s in a good shaking, waits till he knows they can see it, then jumps off and bounds from tree to tree, back towards Talia. He doesn’t go all the way back to her—he can’t, not uphill and with hunters between him and the Nemeton. He just goes far enough so that no hills will be in the way, and then he roars.

She answers almost immediately, sounding just as angry as before. Stiles stays where he is, occasionally shaking a treetop, and the hunters close in on him first, so he moves off parallel to the tree, leading them around it. Keeps on going as they get closer. He also roars one more time, just to check, but Talia has a bead on him and she’s coming straight at him—perfect intercept with the hunting party.

Of course, the tricky part is getting out from between the two in time. Which wouldn’t be tricky if he could just _fly_ , Stiles thinks viciously. 

He’s trying to plot out his jumping route when a glimmer catches his eye. It’s a stream, flush enough with water that he thinks he can swim it, and it’s heading in the right direction. It probably curves off at some point, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Stiles bounces backwards, temporarily closing in on the tree, and lets out a third and final roar to make sure Talia goes straight ahead and runs into the hunters. Then he grits his teeth, jumps out of the tree, and shifts to human, to make a smaller target of himself. Makes a run for the stream.

He does not have the same stamina and speed in this form as he does in his leonine form, but it gets him to the water before anybody comes into sight. And the water _is_ deep, to the point that he has to shift back to four legs only a couple strokes in. It’s deep, and the current is swift, and it is _freezing_.

He hates this place so, so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going with serpents as the enemy of sphinxes because in Egyptian mythology, sphinxes are good and serpents are evil (see: Apep).
> 
> Hamsters were originally found wild in the Syrian desert. So while the reference might seem a little weird in a world without modern pet stores, Stiles could totally have seen them in the desert (and anyway, this is all a made-up fantasy world).


	3. Chapter 3

Somewhere in the grey hours of the morning, Stiles finally gets within sight of the Nemeton. He is covered in layers of mud, and over those layers, leaves and twigs and stupid pine needles that have gotten stuck to the mud over the course of his hours-long trek through the woods. His paws feel like he’s put cloddy, bulky shoes over them, they’re so gummed up. His chest still feels like he’s got buckets of cold water in it, all tight and congested. And he is hungry, and tired. And cold.

And he has visitors. There are bodies curled up near the fence, as close as they can get without triggering the Nemeton into coming after them. Stiles slows, thinking at first that it can’t be _another_ present, all the people who do that sort of thing have to be dead by now, and then one rolls over and they’ve got metal cuffs on their wrists that are trailing broken links. And there’s a body lying on the inside of the fence, right across from them.

It’s Peter, and the ones on the outside are his nieces and nephew. The trio look pretty terrible, all of them manacled somewhere on their body, and covered in half-healed slashes. The boy tries to get in front of his older sister, but Laura grabs his arm and then holds him off to the side, while Peter works himself around the curve of the fence so he can get to Stiles first, as much as that’s possible.

Somebody’s dragged out the aurochs meat again, both halves, and it’s been picked to just bones and a couple tendons. A couple bones are actually outside the fence and that makes Stiles frown; the Nemeton shouldn’t have let Peter do that.

“Stiles,” Peter says, eyes bright, voice ragged like he’s been running all night, and hasn’t just gotten up. “Stiles. Listen. My—Laura, she says that—”

“I bring—have brought it,” Laura says. Her Latin is not as good as Peter’s or Talia’s. She tugs at her sister, who reluctantly pulls something out from behind her back: a book. “This, my mother, she tell—told you—”

“It’s the book about sphinxes,” Peter says.

Stiles grabs the book and flips through it. The language is the same as that on the scrap he found in the clothes storage building—English. He traces the first word in the air over the page with a finger, then another, the meanings buzzing pleasantly in his head.

Peter’s still talking. “Huh?” Stiles says, reluctantly looking up. “Did you want something?”

“Let them in,” Peter says urgently. He presses up against the fence, not seeming to notice that the branches are growing thorns and he’s got blood running from his hands. “Stiles, please, they brought the book, Talia—”

Chris appears over Peter’s shoulder. He makes to come up to the fence too, but spots the thorns and hastily yanks his hands away. Grabs a bone off the ground, and hits it against the fence to make Stiles look at him. “My father, men,” he snaps, jabbing the bone off towards the trees. “ _To call_.”

“What? Did you hear it? Yeah, last night, it got really busy. And gross, and _why_ do you people have to be so hellbent on starting a fight, seriously. It’s worse than getting grounded in the middle of a monoceros lek,” Stiles says, going back to the book.

“Damn it, Stiles, they’re _coming_ ,” Peter hisses. He throws himself into the fence for good measure, hard enough to rattle the branches and make them bow before the thorns catch up.

One thorn catches him on the face, near enough to the eye that when the blood splashes out, his younger niece cries out in alarm. Peter backs up, half-pulled by Chris, but he’s still so wild-looking that even with the fence in the way, Stiles instinctively flicks out his wings. His eyes are wide and frenzied, their whites shining against the blood smeared over his cheek.

“Let them in!” he snarls. “Let them, she’ll kill them otherwise—”

“Your sister?” Stiles says, puzzled.

There’s a blur of motion down at the ground, towards his feet. Stiles yelps and leaps up, dropping the book. He grabs onto the fence, then curses as the retreating thorns catch him, too; the Nemeton’s sluggish as well as strangely permissive, and doesn’t respond to his chiding yowl.

The wolves crowded at his feet, on the other hand, they look pretty terrified. The two younger ones have partly shifted, not that Stiles gets much of a look at it, what with how they’re whining and pawing at the ground like they’re digging a den right there. Laura’s still human but she keeps trying to reach for Stiles’ ankles. She’s also dropped the Latin and is just going on and on in English, her hair whipping over her face and into her mouth as she gestures frantically, making that even less intelligible.

“They’re all dead,” Stiles finally says. “What—”

Chris grabs Peter by the shoulder and shouts something, even though they’re practically face to face. Peter’s eyes glow and he brings up his hand like he’s going to claw off the man’s face, and then instead he twists around and rakes at the fence again. “The _birdcalls_ ,” Peter yells at Stiles. “They’re coming!”

The birds…Stiles cocks his head, then swears and jumps to the top of the fence. He hadn’t been listening, too grumpy with the cold, but even though the calls he’s hearing sound like native birds, they make no sense. And they should to him, geography doesn’t matter about that, so—they’re not birds. They’re hunters.

“Why don’t you people just go away!” Stiles shouts back at Peter.

He doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s already halfway launched to the nearest tree, scrambling straight up the trunk and not bothering with its twiggy branches. He’s upwind, can’t smell them, and the foliage gets in the way of seeing, but he can hear a small group driving towards them. Four or five. Definitely men, though, unless Talia picked up shoes at some point.

She doesn’t look like the shoe type, so Stiles swings from tree to tree, crashing around. He starts hearing shouts as well, but after a short burst, they go away, and the men keep on towards the tree.

They’re too close for him to pick off one at a time. He can’t get them all before they hit the tree, even at top speed. Weaving around the trees slows him down too much—he snarls under his breath, then turns around and goes back to the Nemeton.

It is _not_ listening to him. He jumps to the fence again, ignoring all the shouting below, and rips up a piece of fence and throws it at the tree. That gets its attention, but it’s still…is it trying to _nap_ on him?

“Oh, for—you have winter up here? Seriously?” Stiles says, staring at it. He works his jaw a few times, just…just completely speechless with his incredibly, unendingly creative bad luck.

And then, of course, he hears bowstrings stretching.

Stiles twists around, hesitates, and then throws himself down from the fence. Snaps his wings out and sweeps them around, guaranteeing himself a hard, teeth-rattling smack into the ground, but his metal feathers shake off the flight of arrows like raindrops.

He lands on his hands and one knee, badly. And somebody rushes his left side, all frightened whimpers and scratchy fur and apparent determination to knock Stiles over. He shoves them off, only to get another one at that hip, and barely swings his left wing around to cover the resulting hole before the second flight of arrows. 

They don’t get a third flight off. Two shots are more than enough to tell Stiles where they are, and the moment he hears those bowstrings relax, he flares his wings and then shoots off his remaining primaries with a few curt snaps. Waits a second, because one hunter had been behind a tree, but the man overreacts upon seeing his fellows dying and jerks too far out the other side of it, and then Stiles fires off a last primary.

And now, of course, he’s really grounded. Probably can’t even glide, and growing back all of them is going to take way longer, and Stiles just. He shoves off the half-grown wolf that’s still trying to climb his knee, then starts to stalk into the woods. He knows his aim and he knows they all were fatal hits, but he’s wishing a little that one might not be, just so he can take out his frustration on somebody.

“Stiles!” Peter yells.

At the same time, an exhausted wolf, tongue lolling, slides clumsily in front of Stiles. He hops back, then spreads his primary-less wings and pushes back onto his hindlegs, snarling furiously. The wolf cringes and almost rolls over onto its belly, but it realizes that’s a bad idea when Stiles almost catches it with a gutting swipe. It hastily scrambles back a few feet, still whining at him, keeping him from—from. From something.

Those hunters hadn’t been driving at the Nemeton. They’d been _following_.

“I hate this place so much,” Stiles hisses, whipping around.

He yanks in his wings, then shifts them away just in time to avoid Talia’s first and second strikes. At least, he thinks it’s Talia. The eyes are familiar. The body’s all different, though, a black wolf so huge it’s grotesque, with massively muscled shoulders that put it a good half-head taller than Stiles in four-footed form.

That other wolf nearly rolls itself trying to get away from her, skittering sideways till it’s half-shielding, half-tumbled over two smaller wolves. Just past her, behind the fence, Peter’s gone to wolf form too and he’s still tearing at the branches, trying futilely to get through. He and Laura are both barking and growling, and Talia seems to be responding to them, pacing back and forth, taking the odd snap at Stiles in between howls.

Stiles is between them and Talia, and the moment he moves, her attention goes to him. His instincts are screaming to move over, so nobody’s at his back, but he can’t out-leap her at this range and he doesn’t want her to jump at him. Not on level ground, not when she clearly outweighs him and he isn’t sure he can keep her from knocking him off his feet.

He edges backwards, angling so they’re facing each other straight on. She comes forward at the same rate, her head dropping lower and lower. Shoulder charge, maybe; Stiles is trying furiously to remember what he’s seen of dog- and hyena fights. But they don’t have claws pointed enough to really grip and werewolves do, from the looks of hers. Still, she doesn’t move like a were-cat.

His tail brushes the fence. At the same time, Stiles’ left hand sinks into the mud and onto something that feebly pushes back at it: a Nemeton root. He snarls at Talia to distract her, and grips that root and orders the Nemeton with all he’s got.

The fence goes down. Stiles hears somebody crashing amid its branches, a bunch of disorganized barking, and then pushes that all aside because Talia’s just launched herself into the air.

She’s thrown when he flings a piece of fence at her. She has to twist mid-air to avoid it, and that gives him the second he needs to dive aside. Of course, Talia is twisting after _him_ , but once Stiles is out from under her flight path, he scrambles up onto a pile of fallen fence and then uses it to springboard up and over her. Drags his claws over her back, tearing down the spine, and then pivots at the end to try and grab her hindquarters.

Talia’s too fast for that, sadly, but she seems a little stunned at getting blooded. She whirls back around to face him, roaring, chunks of turf coming up under her paws. Then she tries to rush him but she goes too soon, doesn’t manage to stop herself before he’s laid open her shoulder.

Stiles was going for her neck, but she gnashes her teeth and he doesn’t want to have to regrow fingers, too, so he diverts. They both slip on the muddy ground, sliding apart.

When Talia comes back up, she’s on two legs. Still horribly bulked up, features barely recognizable. “Get out of my land,” she hisses, words barely making it past her froth-covered fangs. “Get out, get out, get _out_.”

“I don’t even want to _be_ here—” Stiles snaps back.

A dark blur goes at Talia’s flanks. She twists around, shifting, and slaps the wolf away and it crashes into a tree, and then a dazed-looking Laura falls to the ground. Talia turns back, drops to hands and feet. Her body shifts and she’s crouching like a coiled spring, all burning red eyes and splayed claws.

Another snarl echoes through the woods. Wolf Peter slinks up to Talia’s right, forcing her to angle away from Stiles to cover him. Past him, back up at the tree, Chris has his arms wrapped around a half-grown wolf that’s huddled over his lap. He’s trying to also hold onto the ruff of a slightly larger wolf, but that one isn’t cooperating so much, puffing up and snarling when Peter snarls.

Talia’s eyes flick to that one. Stiles sees Peter pause as his sister’s attention drifts, pushing down like he’ll use the moment to rush her, and then Talia suddenly lunges, catching him off-guard.

He and Talia go over in a tumble, him briefly coming on top and then they keep rolling. That wolf breaks free of Chris and then almost gets its face gashed open on Talia’s outflung hind leg. It hops back, yipping, and Peter’s just about gotten out of Talia’s grip but he spares a second to snap his jaws, warning the youngling off as Talia tries to kick it again.

Peter pays for it, his hind paw sliding in the mud so that Talia can grab his haunches. She drags him back under her and has her fangs half-in his shoulder when Laura hits her broadside. Knocks her off him, but then Talia’s wrenched around and before Laura can leap away, her mother’s slashed her all the way down her side.

Laura falls over, frantically trying to strike out with all four legs. And Peter is still half-curled on the ground, gone back to human and grabbing at his shoulder as blood gushes out from between his fingers. Talia might’ve hit a major artery.

The two of them aren’t going to kill Talia. And Talia’s certainly going to kill them. She’s a hair away from biting down on Laura’s throat when Stiles, resigning himself to seeing this one through, charges her.

Talia gets him, claws slashing into his thighs and one arm, but he manages to keep his head under her chin, away from the fangs. He gets hold of one of her arms and pins it to the ground. She’s tearing at him with her other, but it’s not at anything vital so he leaves that. Twists till he’s got his knees braced on the ground, his hind-claws dug in. Beats his head over and over into her jaw, until she’s so knocked around she tilts her head just enough.

Stiles gets in and gets his teeth in her throat. He’s not so lucky to hit the arteries right off, but he’s got her pressed into the ground and he’s over her, can bear his weight down to crush off her windpipe. He’s curled too tight for her to reach with her hind-claws, but that free hand of hers rips over his back, dangerously near his spine.

And then he breaks her arm with his wings. He can’t use them to fly right now, but they’ve still got all the muscles for it, and when he snaps them out, he sends the leading edge of one into her forearm like he’s swinging a metal pole. Her arm falls to the ground and out of the corner of his eye, he can see it. The sharp edges of his feathers have sliced open the skin and muscle so he can see the broken ends of the bone sticking out.

Of course it’s already healing. He’s got to stay on her throat so he can’t get the best angle, but he can twist one wing around enough to ram it at her head. Blood and sticky bits of hair, and sticky other stuff starts flying around, and he closes his eyes against it. Talia’s struggling so hard that it’s all he can do to hold her down, anyway. Stiles beats his wings, working them opposite of normal so they’ll force him into Talia, helping to keep on the pressure.

She gets in a couple more hits on him. Even tears out a cluster of feathers, though she must lose at least a few fingers doing that. Stiles growls around her throat, then nearly loses his grip as blood snorts up the back of his throat and into his nose. He wheezes it out, grinding down on her wrist and side till he feels bones snap in both places.

Eventually, her struggles slice her neck arteries against his teeth. It goes a little faster then, since she’s bleeding out as well as suffocating, but she lasts so long. So much longer than he would have thought—longer than any of the were-cats he’s fought before. His jaw’s screaming at him, and he can feel his wingbeats go erratic as he tires.

Talia finally goes limp. He holds her throat for another few minutes, just to make sure, and then he pries off his mouth. He’s so sore that it actually hurts more to shut his jaws.

She still looks angry, even dead, with eyes already glazing over. Stiles grimaces down at her, rubbing at the blood slicking all over his face, neck and chest, and then he starts to get up.

“Stiles,” a woman says. Laura, coming up on hands and knees and swaying on them, like she’s drunk or concussed. “Stiles. You need to—cut. Cut throat—cut it _off_. Make—make sure.”

He moves and her eyes go past him to Talia’s body, and then she abruptly ducks her head and vomits. Stiles looks at her, then back around. Her siblings are holding each other, next to Peter, whose shoulder has started to heal over but who looks very pale. He’s staring at Talia’s corpse and he doesn’t move at all, even though Chris walks right by him.

Chris has one of Stiles’ broken primaries. He makes as if to offer it to Stiles, who just…right, cut off her head, can’t just be done with it because that’s not how this place is.

When Stiles doesn’t take it, Chris starts to say something and then stands back. He rubs at his face, then over the top of his head, then at his face again. Mutters to himself and then walks up to Talia’s body, and squats down by the mess that’s what’s left of her throat. Starts sawing at it with the primary.

Of course he cuts himself. Stiles sighs and goes over, and takes the primary from him. Also takes his wrist, and licks shut the cut, because it’s so bad Chris will probably pass out otherwise. And then Chris holds Talia’s shoulders while Stiles cuts off her head.

Stiles doesn’t even touch that. When he’s done he drops the primary, and walks past all the others, and over to the tree. He climbs up into the nest, uncaring of how filthy he’s making all the bedding, and he curls up and pulls a wing over himself and goes to sleep.

* * *

Stiles is out for a week, healing up. When he finally wakes up, the nest reeks. He reeks. He has to scratch off some of the bedding, it’s stuck that firmly to him with dried blood and mud. And all of it’s ruined, and the nest is no longer watertight so there are freezing drafts blowing over him, and the Nemeton is firmly in hibernation.

He lies in the nest for a second, and then just throws himself at it. Tears it to pieces. It’s satisfying, he’s got to admit, just ripping something up just like all his plans have been ripped up since he got here.

But Stiles runs out of nest, and then he’s got to go down from the tree. It’s…surprisingly clean, all around it. The bodies are gone and the ground’s been tidied up, nearly all the bloodstains gone, too. What’s left of the fence is neatly stacked to one side, and he finds his broken primaries wrapped in an elk skin and tied to one of the Nemeton’s lower branches.

Also, there are a lot of wolf prints, all over. Multiple visits over the past few days. Stiles considers them for a second, then the lack of actual werewolves and man, and then shrugs. Bends down at the watering hole and commences to wash himself.

He’s done with that and is contemplating what to do about food when he hears somebody coming through the woods. They stop, too, and then they howl. It’s short and oddly thin—tentative. Then they resume traveling towards the tree, making so much noise that it has to be deliberate.

It’s two wolves, actually, one he thinks is Laura and then a buff-colored one he doesn’t remember, but that acts like it knows him. When he pulls back and shakes out his wings, it stops with a clearly chagrined air, and then it shifts.

All the other close-up shifts were during fights, so Stiles unashamedly stares at this one. He’s so interested that the person has to clear their throat to make him look up, and oh, it’s Chris.

“Winter,” Chris says awkwardly. He gestures to Laura, and then behind. “Town. My father, death—dead, house, gone.”

“He…is a werewolf to…to survive,” Laura says, just as awkwardly. “Ah…pack, our pack, he is to join—shit. Joining? Has joined.”

“Sure,” Stiles says, shrugging. Yeah, it’s not what he was expecting, but they seem to think it’s a world-changing deal and he can’t really see why. And if it’s something to do with Chris’ family, well, with his father confirmed dead, Stiles really, really has no reason to give a damn what they get up to. “So, speaking of winter, I’ve—”

Laura puts up her hand, and then bounces almost excitedly into the woods. She comes back after a few seconds, hauling a fresh-killed elk behind her. Chris goes over to help, and together they sling it down in front of Stiles, then look expectantly up at him.

“I really need that book back,” Stiles finally mutters. “Wait, no, that’s just on sphinxes—um, do you have any other books? Like on werewolves? Just, fuck, if I’m stuck here for _winter_ , I am so learning your language because I really need to clear up some stuff and we can’t just wait around for Peter.”

“Peter—oh, Peter—with children,” Laura says. She might not understand quite as much Latin as Chris, come to think of it. “Books? Um, I have thought—I think—”

“Wings,” Chris says firmly. Then he squats down and grabs the elk by the head, and tugs that up. He might understand but he clearly has other things on his mind. “Food. We, your wings…my father, Talia, injury…you, no gone…”

“We see you won’t fly,” Laura breaks in. She starts gesturing in frustration. “No, no, couldn’t fly. Can’t fly. So sorry, want to help.”

“Well, thanks,” Stiles says dryly. He’s still pretty mad at, well, everything, but with some sleep under his belt, and the knowledge that all the really crazy people are dead, he can admit that blaming them is a little unfair. And anyway, they’re bringing him things he actually wants, he should probably encourage that. “They’ll grow back. Are growing back, see?”

He pulls a wing around and shows them the emerging primaries. The ones the storm tore out, they’re about a quarter-grown, enough for them to actually start looking like feathers. Laura and Chris both look relieved, and then there’s a funny moment where Laura tries to touch and Chris slaps her hand down, to speak of being helpful.

“What do you need?” Laura says, looking up at him.

“Less terrible things happening,” Stiles says under his breath, in sphinx. Then he sighs, because hey, they’re offering, whatever makes it go faster. “Meat, sleep, books. Um, it’s winter, the Nemeton’s asleep now so it’s no good as a nest and anyway, we usually use caves.”

“Oh! Oh, cave!” Laura says. She’s good-looking—her mother was beautiful, too, if you could get past the insanity—and a little younger than Stiles initially took her for. Though maybe that’s all the eager bouncing. “Cave, we have.”

“Great,” Stiles says. And then he shakes off her grabby hand, and shakes his head, too. “Uh, no. I’m eating first. If something else comes up, I want a full belly.”

Then he drops down and starts digging into the elk. Laura and Chris have a short conversation in English, and then they both shift and join him. They’re kind of edgy around each other—not like either of them are scared of the other, but like they keep forgetting they’re supposed to be friendly. Stiles actually sees Laura do a double-take at Chris at one point, because he’s twisted half-over onto his side to get into the belly and pull out the liver.

Chris doesn’t eat that either. Instead he sits down with it between his paws and starts…cleaning it, scraping off membrane like a human would need to do. When he’s done, he carefully divides it into three parts. One gets shoved at Laura, one he eats, and then the other he carries around the elk. He looks at Stiles, liver hanging out of his mouth, and then gently lays it down by Stiles. Then he backs off a few feet and sits down, still looking at Stiles.

He’s been so careful that his teeth haven’t punctured the fragile lobes. Stiles could eat the membrane, but that stuff does get stuck between the teeth, so it’s a nice gesture. Chris must think Stiles is really mad, for some reason.

Well, having to kill his father, and then a bunch of hunters his father probably hired or trained or whatever. Strange that Chris isn’t so mad at Stiles for it, but…nice things have been few and far in between, so Stiles will absolutely take this one.

Chris makes a soft whuffing sound, watching Stiles gulp down the liver. He gets up like he’s going to come up, and then diverts to start munching on the elk’s hindquarters. Laura’s been staring at the whole thing, and, not that Stiles is an expert in reading wolf faces, with an oddly hopeful air. Though when she realizes Stiles is watching her, she immediately pushes her head into the elk belly, up to the ears.

Whatever, Stiles thinks, and goes back to stuffing himself.

* * *

Between the three of them, they finish off most of the elk. Chris wraps up what’s left in the hide—another human trait he’s carried over, he kept nudging Laura whenever she got too rough with it, even skinned the elk for her rather than let her bite through the hide—and he’s going to carry it when Stiles just takes it. Stiles can do that and still jump through the trees, and he figures they’ll go faster if he does that and they go on four legs instead of two.

The cave is kind of a walk, which Stiles is going to have to get used to, damn it. They go in the same direction as the werewolves’ house, but the house was on a hillside and Laura leads them around it and directly for the hilltop.

Which is actually a cliff, overlooking a small ravine with a creek running through it. The highest point is barely tall enough to clear the treetops, but it’s probably as close as they can get to a roosting cliff within walking distance. Anyway, the rockface is riddled with holes and caves. But obviously werewolves would have trouble with that, so Laura takes them up the wooded side, till they reach a niche between an earthen ridge and a rock outcropping.

It probably wasn’t much more than a vee with a bit of an overhang to begin with, but they’ve lumped up dirt around the sides, and they’ve also burrowed out the back so there’s a sizable recess. It’s one room—even if it’s twice the size of the Nemeton nest—but when Stiles peeks in, he spots a back entrance cutting through the outcrop that might actually go to the cliff face. He can smell the wind blowing through it, anyway.

Also, the—den?—has piles and piles of furs. Plush-looking furs that look very warm and soft. Stiles starts over and then yelps as part of them starts to move.

Two heads go up, and then a third, larger one. Then the half-grown wolves clamber out in a rush. Peter barks at them, rolling over onto his belly, and the bigger one stops but the other one skitters all the way up to Stiles. It pauses, then noses at his knee.

“Cora!” Laura says, coming in. She glances at Stiles, then smiles sheepishly and leans down to put her hand on the wolf’s neck. “Uh, Cora?”

“Then that’s Derek,” Stiles says, nodding at the other one. He’d kind of guessed, but he doesn’t know how English names split by gender and didn’t just want to assume all ones ending in –a were feminine.

Laura nods and drops down to butt shoulders with both of them. They rub cheeks and then throats, the younger ones keeping their heads under Laura’s chin. No licking, just a lot of sniffing.

Once they’re done, they all turn to look at him. “I really, really need English books,” Stiles sighs. “Well, all right.”

He comes over and holds still while they edge up and greet him. Laura’s first, and she just presses their cheeks together, though she does it for kind of a long time. Stiles just mimics whatever she does, which seems to be enough to get by, and then he stoops a little so that Derek and Cora can do the same. Those two also rub throats with him, though they stop at a slight noise from Peter.

“Books?” Peter says. He’s shifted human and is squatting at the edge of the fur pile.

“Yeah, I need to read. Anything you’ve got, I don’t really care what it’s about,” Stiles says. He’s not sure if there’s some special order here, but Chris has gone to do something outside so it’s not like he has a lot of choice.

He crosses the room and goes up to Peter, who immediately slips down onto hands and knees as soon as he realizes where Stiles is heading. Peter seems a little surprised by it, but he’s very eager to do the whole cheek- and throat-rubbing thing, even swinging his body around so they’re pressing together from shoulder to hip. And then he performs an odd little flop that puts him half-under Stiles, belly-down; startled, Stiles lifts his hand, and Peter ends up with his head directly under it.

It’s…still awkward, but Stiles appreciates the effort, and the insight. He lifts his leg so he can straddle the werewolf, then lowers himself so that he’s resting mostly on Peter’s upper back. He rubs his chest between Peter’s shoulderblades a few times, then starts running his fingers through Peter’s hair. Peter pushes his head up into it, making a purring noise very similar to a were-cat.

“Stiles?” says a new voice. It’s the…what’s his name, Derek. In human form he’s what Stiles guesses the humans would call a youth, still smooth-cheeked and raw-boned. He looks quizzical. “Peter?”

He says something in English, which Peter answers in a distinctly lazy tone. Derek blinks hard, then looks at Laura, who had tensed when Peter had gone onto his belly and then had relaxed, watching it play out. Laura seems…also confused, but weirdly pleased. She says something that soothes Derek, and he joins his younger sister, who’s completely lost interest and who is playing with somebody’s knucklebones in the corner.

The room’s actually got a fair bit in it, although they’ve gone to some length to disguise that. The furs are covering a platform of some kind, and from this angle, Stiles can see chests and other boxes peeking out from underneath. A stack of firewood against the wall probably hides more, and Stiles spots a few runes etched into the rock part of the entrance.

Speaking of. Stiles pushes off of Peter and pads over to that back passage. He puts his head in and sniffs the air coming through it, then shifts out his wings. There’s a whole bunch of exclamations behind him, which he ignores, because it is awesome to have enough room to actually open them all the way. He flaps once, very carefully, just getting up enough to blow the air back through the passage, and then puts his wings away and sits and smells as the wind reverses direction.

Definitely cliff-face, and the walls and ceiling of the passage seem solid enough. It’s also shorter than it looks, with a hairpin turn just out of sight of the den that’s a neat visual trick. The turn is tight enough that Stiles probably couldn’t do it at a run, but once he’s squeezed through, he’s glad because the cave is _awesome_. Big and spacious, level floor, shrinking down near the entrance so it won’t be a pain to close that up. And then outside, there’s a nice wide shelf, more than enough for two or three sphinxes to land at once.

There’s some debris, not too bad. A vulture or something must have nested in it once, because Stiles kicks out a small collection of bones. Dead and rotting plant matter, the bottommost layers of which Stiles has to scrape up with his claws. He does that for a few minutes, then makes himself leave it for later and climbs out onto the shelf to check the approach that way.

It’s not the steepest cliff, but it’s enough to keep off humans, and probably any supernatural creature that isn’t absolutely determined to get at Stiles. Would help if they cleared off some of the brush beneath the shelf, he notes.

“Stiles?” says Chris, from behind him. Peter’s there with him, and then what’s probably Laura’s heartbeat a little further back. “Cave?”

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah, this’ll work,” Stiles mutters. He pushes at one gnarled bush growing out of the cliff, then swings himself back onto the shelf and starts scrabbling at all the junk in the cave. “I can work with this. Good.”

* * *

Stiles works for pretty much the rest of the day, clearing out the cave and cutting down the undergrowth around it. The adults periodically come by and help for a bit, but they keep running back to the den, snapping ‘Derek!’ or ‘Cora!’ And Stiles thinks they go off and hunt, too, because he smells deer blood at one point. 

Nobody shows up for a while after that, which is fine with Stiles. They’d kept trying to talk to him, especially Peter, and he needs to concentrate for stuff like sigil work, and weaving a screen for the entrance.

Somebody does come down at dusk. They clear their throat, but when he just keeps on stripping branches for the screen, they don’t say anything. For maybe an hour they sit there and watch him, and then they go away.

He finally has to stop with the screen still half-done, but it doesn’t look or smell like a storm’s brewing any time soon, so that…can wait, he reluctantly acknowledges. His stomach is growling, and his fingers and shoulders ache from wrestling with branches.

Stiles turns around and there’s a pair of deer hindlegs at the mouth of the passage up to the den, right next to a short stack of fur and a book—the one on sphinxes. He eats one of the hindlegs while checking out the stack: there are two furs, one bear and one some kind of wildcat. Then he eats the other hindleg while reading the book. He throws the bear fur over his shoulders, but the wildcat fur is too small to really do anything with so he wraps it around the book, which is very old and very delicate. 

Sphinxes have excellent night vision and he could probably keep reading there by the starlight, but it starts getting too cold in the cave. So he closes up the book and goes up through the passage, where the air is feeling distinctly warmer.

They’re all in the den. Chris is over by the entrance, trying to get a fire started—they apparently use that instead of a covering or a screen—and Peter and Laura are over on the furs with Derek and Cora. Peter’s dozing but his eyes snap open just as Stiles steps in. He flips onto his hands and knees, as if to get off the furs, and then sits back.

Chris twists around too, eyes widening when he sees Stiles. He starts to rise and then has to duck down as a flame suddenly spouts out of the twigs at his feet. Then he’s contorted around, trying to blow it into a proper fire while still watching Stiles. The kids are sleeping and don’t stir at all, and Laura’s so busy picking at Derek’s hair that she’s the last to notice. But when she does, she acts just as startled and nervous as the other two.

“What,” Stiles says, frowning at them. He looks around, then settles on a spot behind the children, at one side of the bedding. Goes over and gets on the furs, tucking his hindlegs and tail neatly away, and then he plops the book down. He’s going to start reading, but he remembers the wildcat fur and pulls it out. “What’s this for?”

“Clothes?” Laura says uncertainly. 

She’s got a long strip bound around her breasts, but otherwise she and Chris and Peter are all naked. Derek and Cora have clothes on. Too big for them, and Stiles can see holes in the sleeves of Cora’s shirt where the girl’s just been too impatient to roll them up, and stuck her hands through. And Chris does have a puddle of fabric at his feet.

Stiles blinks, then shrugs. He puts the fur aside and pulls the book over, and starts reading. They stare at him some more, then slowly go back to what they were doing. Well, except Peter snakes himself around so that he’s coming up on Stiles’ other side. He jars Derek awake and Derek snarls sleepily, then flips to press up to Laura’s hip, looking wide-eyed at Stiles. Which then shakes Cora, who wakes up, grumbling, spots Stiles and then promptly crawls over to poke at the book cover, ignoring Laura’s warning hiss.

“You,” she says in English. “You killed _something_ mother.”

“Yes,” Stiles says back to her, and everybody inhales at once. He looks up, then remembers. Switches to Latin since he’s only a few chapters into the book. “Oh, yeah, so, if I read enough of a language, I pick it up. But I’m going to need way more than this one book for that.”

Laura and Chris look blank. Peter blinks once, hard, and then grins like Stiles just showed him something amazing. He starts to ask a question, but Chris interrupts, sounding as if Stiles has yanked the breeze out from under him. “You couldn’t _something_ say that?”

“I _asked_ you for books before, but you kept saying no, don’t go here,” Stiles says, still in Latin, just as irritably. He turns the page, and then a finger stabs down on it.

Cora and Derek apparently don’t understand any Latin, but where Derek keeps looking at the others, like he can will them into translating for him with his glower, Cora fidgets impatiently for them to finish talking and then bumps Stiles’ leg with her hand. “You killed my mother,” she says again. “You killed her.”

Laura sucks in her breath. “Cora,” she says, low, snappish with an undercurrent of worry.

Peter doesn’t bother with words, just swats at Cora, but she leaps over his hand and then she’s actually grabbing onto Stiles’ shoulder. While her sister and her uncle look absolutely petrified, she peers into Stiles’ face in the scowling, insistently curious way of bratty children everywhere. She doesn’t look mad, strangely enough, but he can’t peg what her expression is.

“You want me to go?” Stiles finally says, trying out his English.

Cora’s eyes go huge and round. “No!” she says, and sinks little claws into Stiles’ shoulder for good measure. When he shakes her off, she tries to climb onto his back and he rolls his eyes and twists her off, and then uses his elbow to nudge her so she won’t step all over the book. “No. No. You killed her.”

“You keep saying that,” Stiles mutters. He looks at her, and when she just juts her chin out at him, snorts and goes back to reading. “You are all so weird.”

He maybe doesn’t get that quite right, by how Cora’s brow wrinkles, but then she shrugs and she reaches out. Peter makes another grab for her and she dodges, then prods Stiles’ chin. “This hers?”

Oh, he’s got dried blood on it. He rubs at his jaw, then licks his fingers clean. “Deer. Your hair’s dirty.”

Cora immediately starts pawing at it. She doesn’t find it right away, but she does scatter hairs all over the book. “Why do I always end up with the annoying one,” Stiles mutters, and then he slings his arm around her waist. Shuts the book, pulls her over, and then tugs out the little mat of dirt and blood. “There.”

“You’re dirty,” Cora echoes, and then she snuggles _into_ him, like her uncle wasn’t pushy enough.

“Damn it, Cora—” Laura says, just as Cora laps at Stiles’ shoulder, where a little blood’s gotten smeared.

Laura freezes again, then visibly wilts with relief when Stiles just rolls his eyes and moves the book so Cora’s not in the way of looking at it. She and Peter both look…well, they’re confused, but it’s not like Chris is confused over in the corner. Chris looks like he really just doesn’t know what’s going on, period, while the other two look like…they know what’s going on but it’s not going like it’s supposed to. Maybe they have special grooming techniques Cora’s supposed to use? Though what Laura was doing to Derek looked pretty standard.

Which reminds Stiles. “This book had one chapter on sphinxes, and nothing about werewolves,” he says, switching back to Latin. “Do werewolves not write about themselves?”

“There are books, but we can’t get them right now,” Peter says slowly. He comes up behind Cora, who’s cleaned off Stiles’ shoulder and who appears to think she might as well curl up and sleep now, and carefully works himself so that he’s caging her in with his arms and legs. Also, so that his hip’s sliding against Stiles. “We’re still bringing out things from—from our old house. And Chris thinks he can get into his father’s house, but we have to wait for them to bury the man.”

“Oh. Fine.” Stiles flips the page and then snorts at the full-page, horrendously inaccurate diagram of a unicorn heart. It’s not even the right shape. “Well, whenever you get those, it’d help. I don’t understand half of what you people do.”

Peter lets out a small, half-stifled, incredulous noise, though when Stiles looks over, Peter’s hastily smoothed out his expression to absolutely sober. And then he hangs around, watching Stiles read. He does do Stiles the favor of slowly edging Cora off; she must be about to hit a growth spurt because she seems to be all bony angles when she curls up.

And then Cora wakes up again. She realizes what’s going on, snorts out of her shirt and shifts to wolf form, and then curls back up. She’s pushing into Stiles’ arm but now that she’s soft and furry, he minds a lot less.

It takes about two minutes for Peter to catch on. He shifts and crouches by Stiles’ hindquarters, making that purring noise when Stiles pushes back against him. Stops when wolf-Derek scoots up to him, looking curious. Peter’s upper lip lifts in a silent snarl and Derek freezes, then backtracks.

Laura’s since moved to the fire, and she and Chris appear to be discussing some map Chris is drawing on the ground. She looks up, then sighs like she’s seen this a zillion times before. She starts to get up and then Peter makes a heavy, irritable snuffling noise. When Stiles looks back, Peter’s got his head tilted up and slightly over. 

He moves it in a curt come-here motion, and after a moment’s wide-eyed staring, Derek scrambles up and beds down against Peter’s chest. Peter does not look thrilled, even in wolf form, and then he glances over and realizes that Laura has gone stock-still and is so shocked her mouth is actually hanging open. His shoulders hunch defensively. Then he snorts dismissively. He shifts back when Derek tries to roll into him.

So Derek rolls into his sister instead, and he and Cora get into a sleepy paw-pushing quarrel before Stiles, trying to spell out a particularly long word, elbows both of them. They whimper and Peter goes tense at Stiles’ hip. Then they calm down, and are just really warm, really fuzzy little heaters, and it’s actually kind of great. They’re a lot warmer than another sphinx would be, and at least there isn’t any fighting about whose wing is in the way, and who needs to just shift to leonine form.

Stiles gets through a couple more chapters that way, then starts feeling that pinch between his shoulders. He’s kept his wings in practically all day and he can’t help a long sigh as he finally lets them out. “Cramps, ugh.”

“Do you need anything?” Chris is asking, in English.

“Huh? No, just—oh, hang on a second.” Stiles stretches his wings all the way out, both of them, because these werewolves do appreciate space, and then he half-folds them so they’re mostly off the furs. “All right, get in.”

Chris just stands there. When Stiles looks up, Chris is…watching Laura, who has her hand up on the side of her face and who appears to be nursing a headache. She flinches upon seeing Stiles’ eyes on her, then throws up her hands in exasperation.

“Just get in bed,” she says to Chris, and climbs on herself.

Stiles frowns. Looks over at that fabric puddle near the fire, and realizes it’s not just clothes, it’s a fur, too. “So…werewolves don’t sleep together?”

Laura stops where she’s pushing out a little hollow in the furs, next to Derek. “Do sphinxes?” she says.

“You sleep with,” Stiles starts. He pauses, then adds in Latin: “Flock.”

“What’s flock?” Laura says.

“Um, it’s…” Stiles waves his hand, not sure if he’s got enough words in English _or_ Latin “…whoever you think is flock.”

“It’s not just blood kin?” Laura says.

Stiles raises his brows. “Are werewolf packs only blood relations? But you said Chris is—”

“It’s complicated,” Chris suddenly says. He comes over to the side of the furs, then sits on the edge as if he’s sitting on a knife blade. He picks through his words very slowly, repeatedly looking at the book. Trying to pick words that’d be in there, maybe. “We have history. Most of it bad, poison—poisonous.”

“I thought that was your father and their mother,” Stiles says.

Chris looks past Stiles at Peter. Who is still a wolf and who is silent, but who must do something because Chris presses his lips together very hard.

“It was everybody,” he finally says. He glances at Laura, who is blank-faced in a very careful way. Hesitates a second longer, and then swings onto the furs with a face like he’s throwing himself onto a sword, or something like that.

He sets up at the far corner. The bed isn’t so big once everybody is piled on, but Chris keeps himself tight and doesn’t touch anybody else.

Does shift so that he’s completely under Stiles’ wing, once Stiles starts to let those ease down. Laura’s just like Peter, so interested in them that she kind of forgets about Chris, and when Chris sees that he smiles sourly and unknots himself a little more.

“Don’t grab it,” Stiles says to Laura. Then sighs as she shoves her hands under herself. She is way, way too old to be acting like a fledgling. “You can touch. Underneath. Not on top, and no grabbing.”

She nods, and smartly moves so that she’s got her arm to block both Derek and Cora, if they happen to wake up and see. She puts her hand up and grazes over Stiles’ wing with her fingertips, but just for a couple seconds. He thinks she’s gotten bored, and then she cranes her head up and rubs her cheek over the down.

Peter snarls. Laura doesn’t lower her head, but she stops rubbing. Her arm tightens over Derek and Cora and she glares at Peter for a second. Then grins, amused but not quite pleasant.

“Knew you weren’t that different,” she says. She finally does put her head down, on Derek’s back.

Peter shifts against Stiles’ hip, pushing into it. He’s too hard and Stiles thwaps his tail across Peter’s haunches, and then, when that doesn’t move him, lifts a hindleg and pushes Peter away.

That surprises Peter so much that he’s like a limp sack for a second. Then he goes stiff. But he doesn’t fight, just edges off. Waits for Stiles to finish the push and go back to reading, and then he creeps back. Stiles lifts his leg just as Peter’s breath ghosts over it and Peter goes still, whining lowly.

“I’m trying to learn here,” Stiles mutters. Then he puts his leg down. Swishes his tail-tip into Peter’s head as Peter tries to sneak up again, and then, when Peter slumps down where he is, rolls his eyes. Touches his tail-tip to Peter’s muzzle for a second, then withdraws it.

Peter comes up a lot slower, and more hesitantly. He just puts his head against Stiles’ hip this time, holding off most of the weight till Stiles turns the page, and then he settles in place. Finally.

* * *

Over the next week, Stiles alternates between inhaling whatever books they’ve got, and working on winter-proofing the cave. On the sunny days, he also spends some time on the shelf outside the cave, preening his wings, but those are getting rarer and rarer. He might actually have to resort to some kind of clothing, at this rate.

He’s not really paying attention to the others, but they’re surprisingly not intrusive. They leave him food, and more furs, till he’s got a decent bed of his own in the cave—he still goes up to the den at night, and yeah, fine, because living furry things are still warmer—and when he treks out to a nearby stream for water and washing-up, one of them usually trails him, but otherwise they don’t bother him.

Chris and Laura seem to be out a lot. Some of that’s hunting, some of that’s getting things that mean they’re going into town: candles, soap, stuff like that. For the town trips they get dressed, and once Laura goes so far as to dig out a silk dress from one of the chests, and puts it on and goes off with dainty boots held in her hands. Also, it takes Stiles a while to pick up on it, but Chris doesn’t go out unless he’s with Laura, or more rarely, Peter.

Peter obviously doesn’t really enjoy watching children, but he seems to get tired very easily so if somebody gets left back, it’s him. The kids actually aren’t too bad—they’re a little standoffish during the day, but are all about snuggling at night. They mostly behave themselves, and when Cora gets too fidgety, Derek is apparently old enough to be allowed to take her out in front of the den to run around. Though Peter doesn’t use those opportunities for naps; instead he goes and sits at the den entrance. Laughs whenever one of the kids does something like gets a claw jammed into a tree hole, but the one time a bear came sniffing up, bitter and malevolent with the growing food scarcity, Peter ripped into it so badly they couldn’t skin it for the fur.

They are _definitely_ all arguing, but they go away to do it, and then come back, silent and tight-lipped and turning their backs to each other. Mostly Peter and Chris, although Peter and Laura go and do it every time Laura comes back with something from their old house. Chris and Laura actually seem to get along fine, and _that_ throws them, making them stop and look suspiciously at each other ever so often.

At first Stiles thinks that the fight relocations are for his benefit, but then Peter and Laura get into a fight when they’re still in earshot of the den and Derek and Cora come tumbling down the passage to huddle in the back of Stiles’ cave.

Stiles is in the middle of pinning the last screen across the entrance with some rocks, and neither of them say anything, so he figures they’re just coming to watch him again. They sometimes do that when Peter’s gotten fed up enough to just pretend he’s fallen asleep on them.

But then he turns around and it’s pretty obvious that that’s not it. They’re smushed up against the wall, side-by-side, eyes glowing. Derek hitches up and wraps his arm around his sister, who would normally shrug that off, but Cora actually curls into it.

They look at each other for a few minutes. When neither kid says anything, Stiles just goes and gets his day’s meat and starts eating. Finishes that, lights the lantern that Chris brought a few trips ago, and settles in his furs to read a book of fairytales.

“That’s ours,” Cora suddenly says. She twists out of Derek’s grip and crawls over to the furs, and then pokes the book’s spine. 

Stiles lowers it, then pushes it over and reaches behind him for another book. The fairytales are pretty decent for updating him on slang like figures of speech, but he’s not really into the stories themselves, too many boring princesses and dumb knights. But then Cora pushes it back at him.

“You can read it,” she says. She glances behind her, where a pained-looking Derek is coming up, and then folds her legs under herself.

“I’m not going to read it to you. You’ve already read it anyway,” Stiles says to her.

Cora frowns. “Have not.”

“It’s from the library but we weren’t allowed to touch,” Derek says, settling slightly behind Cora. He’s careful to keep a clear shot to the passage. He barely speaks to anybody, unless he’s in wolf form, and then he seems to just be growling at Peter or Laura for not letting him go out with them. “Peter read a couple stories to us once, but Dad didn’t like that.”

Stiles pulls the book over and tilts it up in his hand. They’re pretty innocuous tales, unless there’s something in the back third that’s totally different. “Why not?”

“Dad didn’t like Peter,” Cora says.

“Huh,” Stiles says. He drops that book and picks up a new one, which turns out to be about magic circles. And that is totally in his wheelhouse, and he should be deeply engrossed in it.

He looks up, and both Derek and Cora are eyeing him.

“You _can_ read, right?” Stiles sighs, though he’s picking up the fairytale book.

“Peter taught us.” Cora constantly scowls but she likes to get up and check Stiles’ shoulders and back whenever possible. He’s pretty sure she’s trying to figure out where his wings go. “Because it made Dad mad.”

Derek makes a face like he’s just following Cora to keep an eye on her, but he swings to Stiles’ other side. “Laura helped.”

“Because it made Dad mad?” Stiles can’t help saying.

“No, Mom,” Derek says. He’s not quite as matter-of-fact about it as Cora, and seems to have some idea of what it all sounds like to outsiders, but he still is kind of eerily calm. “She wanted to do it, but she and Dad were always gone, or fighting, and Laura got—well, Peter only did it when he was annoyed at Dad, so Laura did it the rest of the time. They’re fighting right now.”

“Peter and Laura?” Stiles says after a second. Cora’s finished poking at his shoulders and she’s twining up so she can read the book over his forearm.

Derek hesitates, then nods shortly. He pops out his claws and chews at one till the top layer comes off, and then he scrapes at the underside with another claw to sharpen it. “Laura’s been talking to some of the people with Chris—” he grimaces again; he’s wary around Chris but it doesn’t seem to be a strong dislike, just uncertainty“—she wants to get bigger things, like timber from them. Build a house. Peter thinks you won’t like that.”

“What, a house? Well, I don’t live in them, but you want to build one, I don’t care.” Stiles frees his forearm from Cora’s as-usual overeager grip, then folds it across his chest so she doesn’t have to push over it to read.

“But you’re going to leave, right?” Derek says.

“You can’t leave,” Cora protests, looking up. “You killed Mom.”

Stiles blinks hard. “So does this mean something to werewolves? I mean, besides that I killed her?”

“She was alpha,” Derek says after a moment, looking confused. He tilts his head. His shoulders are tensing up and he keeps pushing his hands against the furs like he’s going to get up, maybe pace around. “You killed her, that makes you alpha.”

“Sphinxes don’t have alphas,” Stiles says. He pauses. “Also, what, you’re not mad at me? Not that I want you to be, but…”

Both Derek and Cora seem to be a little floored by this idea of no alphas, and they need a moment. Cora scoots back along Stiles, so that she’s equally snuggled into him and into her brother. She frowns for a second, and then her head bobs up. “Oh, so _that’s_ why your eyes still look the same.”

“Mom was,” Derek starts. He sounds very rough and it dampens his sister’s spirits, too; she abandons her enlightened moment to go nuzzle with him. Which seems to make him feel better, but he’s still chewing his lip between words. “She wasn’t Mom. Not for a while. I don’t think you killed _Mom_. I think you killed our alpha.”

Then he puts his head down on Cora’s back. He’s not trying to sleep; he’s just lying there, his eyes slitted, hands tucked into the folds of the over-large shirts that he and Cora are wearing. Cora keeps nuzzling at his chin and jaw, and Stiles looks at them, and then sighs and reads them a fairytale.

Reads them five, actually, and they’re all stupid. After the second one Stiles can’t help adding some comments about how the writer obviously doesn’t know how plate armor really works, and how if you tried to work magic as described, you’d just end up as living ashes because you didn’t do any grounding. They either don’t pick up on the editorial insertions or they don’t care. It’s hard to tell with Cora falling asleep, and Derek grunting just often enough so that Stiles has to keep reading.

When Stiles hears somebody coming down the passage, he breathes a sigh of relief and shoves aside the book. Derek raises his head, then shifts over so he’s covering his sister. He doesn’t look that worried but it’s definitely protective, so Stiles pushes up on his arms and back onto his haunches.

But it’s just Chris, with an armful of rabbits. He drops them in the designated butchering corner, then eyes Derek till Derek grumpily lies down, still half-over Cora, who is sleeping through all of this.

“They’re done,” he says to Derek.

Derek doesn’t move. “Fine.”

Chris starts to get up, and then his mouth twists, half-irritated, half…strangely helpless. “Laura’s worried about you.”

“So?” Derek mutters.

The irritation starts to win out on Chris’ face, but he takes a deep breath, and then picks up a rabbit. They’re already skinned and gutted, but he uses his claws to portion it into chunks instead of tearing at it with his teeth like the others would. “Peter’s wondering whether he should come get you, if you’re bothering Stiles,” he says.

Derek makes a face. Then very pointedly looks at Stiles, who shrugs.

“You know he’s just going to come anyway, to see for himself,” Chris adds. Totally the nag.

Rolling his eyes, Derek nudges Cora, and then just scoops her up. He carries her off at an annoyed stalk. Chris waits till they’ve disappeared into the passage and then brings a couple rabbit thighs over to Stiles. “Sorry. All we got today. Game’s going into the mountains.”

Come to think of it, the kills have been going down in size. Stiles flicks out his wings and checks the progress on his primaries, and then sighs. He still can’t fly, and he hasn’t done much walking all week so he’s probably lost his stamina for that. But he should get out—he has enough English for everything except very niche subjects—and he hasn’t contributed anything since before he killed Talia.

“They’re kind of nervous around you,” he says through a mouthful of rabbit. Absentminded observation, he’s busy trying to remember where he got that aurochs and if it was on a regular trail.

“My father tried to kill them,” Chris says. He hesitates, eyes dropping, and then puts down his half-eaten thigh. “I was there. I didn’t do anything to stop it.”

Stiles swallows his mouthful, then looks over. “Did you want to? Weren’t you a hunter then?”

“I was—yes. I was a hunter.” Chris does not seem to like that word. His face screws up around it like he’s sucking a lemon. “But—not—they were even younger. Cora was, she was barely up to your waist. I don’t think you should go after them that young.”

“Well, and now you’re a werewolf,” Stiles says.

“Yeah,” Chris mumbles. He grimaces again, then picks up the thigh and mechanically scrapes off what’s left of the meat with his claw. Then he flops it around in his fingers, watching the flesh get more and more bruised. “My father’s men are all dead, and the rest of the people hated them. If they weren’t hunting, they were lording it over everyone, and—we’re lucky they think the house is cursed, otherwise they probably would’ve burned that to the ground. They aren’t going to let me live with them again, and I wouldn’t make it through the winter on my own.”

Stiles finishes all of his rabbit, and he’s getting tired of seeing that strip slap around in Chris’ hand. He takes it, and then shoves it at Chris’ mouth. Because it’s all lumpy and crushed-looking now, he’s not going to eat it.

Chris jerks back. He stares at Stiles over it, and then slowly takes the strip back. Puts it in his mouth and bites off a chunk without looking that thrilled about it. Him having his words now doesn’t do anything to improve his mood. “Not like there’s been much of a difference for a while,” he finally mutters.

“The town,” Stiles says, and he looks up sharply. “There’s no hunters left? But that doesn’t mean all the people who can use weapons are gone. Are they going to come after us?”

“No. No, we’re—Laura—well, we both are talking to them.” Chris eats another chunk of rabbit, then wipes off his mouth. “We aren’t going after them. I made them—I made the Hales, that’s Laura and Peter and their family name, I made them promise none of that, unless we all agreed. So they won’t do that, and I’ll help them talk to the townspeople.”

“I thought they hated you? The town?” Stiles says.

“Yeah, well, they’re scared of me, too. I watched how my father did it for long enough,” Chris says. His eyes drop again, and then he snorts. “None of the people who are left are fighters, that’s what matters. They’re happy they aren’t getting killed in the middle anymore, and if they don’t see us except for trading, I think they don’t mind pretending we’re just the strange local hermits. They know if we’re gone, another pack will just move in. Better the devil you know.”

He finally finishes his rabbit. There’s another one over in the corner, but when he goes for it, Stiles grabs his arm. Now that the cave’s more or less roughed out, Stiles can spend more time reading and he wouldn’t mind a snack later.

They’ve both got blood over their hands and mouths now. Stiles starts licking at the smears on Chris’ cheek and jaw. Chris is still for a few minutes, but eventually he picks up Stiles’ hand. He rubs his fingers down Stiles’ fingers, gathering up the blood, and then he sucks that off his fingers. It’s awkward to begin with, and he’s tentative and clumsy on top of it, but when Stiles pulls his hand away, Chris starts to reach after it. Then he stops himself, hissing quietly.

“I really could use a werewolf book,” Stiles says. He cleans off his own hands, and then starts rubbing at his jaw, where the blood is getting unpleasantly sticky. “I can’t figure out werewolf grooming at all. Every time I do it, you get all stiff.”

“Well, I’ve only been one for a couple weeks,” Chris says dryly. He hunches his shoulders, then sighs. “I’m probably doing it wrong. You know—my family’s been studying them for generations, and I’ve read everything we have, but I still get things wrong about a hundred times a day.”

Stiles pauses and considers that. It’s not like you can _make_ a non-sphinx into a sphinx, after all. “Is it hard? Learning?”

“Depends on who’s teaching,” Chris snorts. He glances up at Stiles—he’s doing that thing where he keeps his head lower—and then he stretches over. His breath puffs at Stiles’ jaw and he hovers uncertainly, then takes a nervous lick at Stiles. Then another.

He makes a soft, startled noise when Stiles licks at him, but then he scoots his knees forward, craning his head around so that they both have better reach. He’s getting a little more firm with his lapping, pressing in to get the blood out of the hollow behind Stiles’ ear, so Stiles goes for the same spot on him and—Chris shivers, then makes a low, purring noise.

Then he stops licking and tucks his chin down. Stiles pushes further behind his ear and he shivers again, arches his neck so that he’s rubbing it against Stiles’ jaw. He starts licking again, but it’s very short, ticklish strokes, which can’t be really cleaning much.

Stiles grabs his shoulder to try and get Chris to pay attention, and Chris whines and drops. Starts to roll over, then catches himself and turns it into a clumsy belly crawl, like Peter did those couple times. He hasn’t gotten half the blood on Stiles, but he’s also never asked like this before and it’s nice of him to try and do it the sphinx way, Stiles supposes.

So Stiles climbs onto his back and cradles down over his shoulderblades. Chris turns his head so that Stiles can get the bloody side of his face, still shivering, eyes closed. Doesn’t take long, but when Stiles is done, Chris keeps lying there. Annoyed, Stiles gets off and kicks over a few feet. Finishes cleaning himself off and then reaches for a book.

“I think we can get at my father’s library on the next trip,” Chris says after a few minutes. He’s still where he was, but he’s pulled in all his limbs and looks very nervous. “I’m sorry we haven’t gotten it sooner, but we can’t keep breaking in and it’s taking a while to get the townspeople to agree.”

“Those are the werewolf books, right?” Stiles says. Then he rolls his eyes at himself. Tunnel vision is his middle name sometimes, and today is one of those times. “Actually, I guess I could just ask you all? I wanted the books so that I could learn English at the same time, but I’m pretty good with that now. Well, that, and every time I turned around, one or the other of you were getting dumped on me.”

“You should ask Peter,” Chris says, and then he shakes his head hard. “I mean Laura.”

Stiles looks at him. “Do you hate him or not? Because I’m confused.”

“I think everybody is. Even he is,” Chris says after a long pause. He’s very dry again, and Stiles has to admit that actually understanding him does help with appreciating his sense of humor. “Peter is. He’s changed. He’s always going to be somebody with something up his sleeve. But I think he’s finally figured out what he wants—I think that was his problem most of the time, before, he didn’t know so he just liked screwing up what other people wanted.”

“You sound like you know him pretty well, actually. I thought you were all trying to kill each other. That leave a lot of time for talking?” Stiles says.

“Not usually. But he manages it.” Chris sounds very, very reluctantly impressed. He shifts, goes still, and then, when Stiles doesn’t move, he slowly eases himself up onto his hands and knees. Comes over, watching Stiles the whole way, and then bends down and sucks very quickly at a bit of blood Stiles missed on the back of one hand. Then he sits back to check Stiles’ reaction. 

Well, it’s a little late, but Stiles guesses he should appreciate that Chris actually figured it out on his own. He shifts off his belly, letting his hindlegs stretch out over the furs, and Chris hesitantly moves to lie up against his side. It’s been a while for that, Stiles realizes; up in the den Chris is always off to the side, except for one night when Derek had been having a nightmare, and had been tossing so much that Stiles had hopped to the other end of the bed with Chris, leaving Peter and Laura to try and pin down the boy.

“I’d moved out of my father’s house when he sent Kate after Talia’s husband,” Chris says after a few minutes. “I—I really should’ve taken Kate with me, but I wasn’t thinking. I just—anyway. When she died, my father had his men break into my house in the middle of the night and drag me back, because he needed an heir. He had me locked up in this shed in the woods for half a year, to make me agree to it. Peter found it, and sneaked past the guards to talk to me.”

“Was he trying to get people to kill Talia back then?” Stiles says.

Chris barks out a short, very sour laugh. “Yeah, that, and I think he just liked that I had to listen to him, had nowhere else to go. He’d tell me all about what Kate did, get me worked up so when my father came to visit, we’d get into it, and it’d always end with Gerard—not just admitting Peter was right, but boasting about it. And then Peter would come back and get me mad again.”

“And you don’t hate him?” Stiles says, looking at him.

“Well, he did talk to me, and they could’ve killed him for it. He was the only one—the guards were ordered to not even look at me,” Chris says. He puts his head down on his arms, his weight sliding more and more onto Stiles. “He got bored with it sometimes, and would talk about other things. There was this—woman I was courting, which I had to give up, of course. I let it slip to him, and he went over to her village and he watched her, and came back and told me about it. To get me mad, but it’s still all I’ve heard of her since my father grabbed me.”

Stiles has been holding this book for ages, and he hasn’t even cracked the covers. He flips it open, then sighs. Shifts to curl more around Chris. “I am still confused.”

“Well, so am I. I honestly still want to kill him half the time, even if he’s a little less of a selfish bastard. But he’s pack now, much as I still can’t believe that,” Chris says. He kneads absently at the furs under them, then humps his hips up and away from Stiles. Shifts, giving himself a full-body shake at the end, and lies back down.

His fur, aside from being much lighter than the others, feels a little different, too. The undercoat isn’t quite as thick, and the strands are finer. Stiles runs his fingers through it and it’s more like the desert animals than the shaggy coats all the beasts up here seem to have. But that also lets his body warmth filter out to Stiles faster.

Chris huffs a little when Stiles slings an arm over his neck, pulling him in, but he doesn’t resist. Even moves his head so his nose won’t be lying on the book as Stiles tries to read.

It’s a history book, and after the first chapter, Stiles figures out it’s about the region, written by somebody who knows a lot about supernatural creatures, but who probably isn’t one. Well, maybe a mage, or a druid, or something like that. They’re very judgmental, too, especially about when they think other people are being too hasty to draw conclusions. Though oddly, they don’t really seem to take any one side. Hunters, alpha werewolves, lords and villagers, the author rakes over all of them at one point or the other.

If they’re still alive, and Stiles met them, he’d probably hate them, but they’re definitely entertaining in book form. He reads until the lantern candle starts to gutter, and even then, does his best to squeeze out a last page before the flame flickers out completely.

And then he realizes his legs have gone a little numb. He grimaces and wiggles his toes, then heaves himself up. Little streaks of lightning shoot up and down his limbs and Stiles stifles a groan, rocking back and forth to work out the cramps.

Chris grunts when he feels Stiles slip away, then tries to scoot closer, only to flop over because there’s nothing to support him. He opens his eyes and looks blearily up, then around. Gets halfway through a shift, starts sharply, and then slowly sinks back to the furs in human form.

Peter’s sitting over by the passage entrance. He lifts his head when Stiles looks over, then tilts it quizzically when Stiles snickers. “You usually come up before this,” he finally says.

Stiles snickers again. Glances at Chris, who is studious about his serious face, and then picks up a book and pads over to the other werewolf. “Lost track of time,” Stiles says, squeezing by Peter.

The others are bedded down when he gets up to the den, a very quiet Peter in his wake. Cora’s fast asleep, but Laura and Derek were discussing something that involves moving around…they’re little animals carved out of bone, aurochs and deer and elk. Stiles looks closer and notes that more than one carving style is represented, too.

“We’ve got to get something bigger than rabbits,” Laura says, watching him. “Snow’s going to start falling soon, we need to—”

“Snow?” Stiles says. Then he flops over and stares at the ceiling. “What _else_ do you people have, honestly? Icebergs? Frost demons? Giant snow worms?”

“Giant snow worms?” Derek echoes incredulously. He looks at Peter, who shrugs helplessly.

“The snow’s not that bad, most it gets is three or four inches,” Chris says. He’s come up behind Peter, but he moves ahead and gets on the bed first. He’s careful to go clear of Cora, but this time he presses close to Stiles instead of heading for his corner. “It does get very icy. The sleet storms kill a lot of people who can’t get to shelter in time.”

Stiles rolls over onto his belly and buries his face in the furs for a few minutes, because sleet storms.

“Never mind, Derek,” Laura says. “Look, if you’re coming, you need to pay attention. I can’t watch your back during a hunt.”

“I know what to do,” Derek mutters. “You should worry about him.”

Laura lets out an exasperated noise, just as Peter moves onto the bed, edging up on Stiles’ free side. “Chris might not be very good at taking down prey yet, but at least I don’t have to remind him to go from downwind,” she says. Then she sighs. “Damn it. Derek, Derek, listen…”

“Just listen to your sister for once,” Peter says. “It won’t kill you.”

Stiles pulls his head up enough so that he can see the bone animals. They’ve also lumped up the furs to make little hills and valleys, and Laura is fussing those back into order. “What are you going after?”

Everybody stops and stares at him. He bridles, then pushes himself up on his arms and reminds himself it’s probably just another werewolf thing he’s stepping all over without realizing.

“There’s still some elk left. Old bulls,” Peter says after a moment. “Nasty, but doable with three.”

“You’re staying with Cora?” Stiles asks.

Peter purses his lips, and deliberately turns his shoulder to the worried look Laura gives him. “I think the last few months dealing with Talia have caught up with me. Injuries from alphas heal much slower and I took most of them.”

“She was keeping back the food, too,” Laura mutters. “Wouldn’t let me split up my share either, who knows why.”

“Because she needed a spare, in case she lost her alpha status,” Peter says. He’s irritable for some reason, and then immediately looks regretful. He sucks in his breath, shifting back and watching Laura’s frozen face, eyes slowly filling with horror, and then sits up. “Laura. Laura. She’s d—”

“Is that what she was keeping you for, too?” Laura suddenly snaps. “Hold me down?”

Derek’s between them, poor kid, and he looks like he wishes he could just claw straight through the ground to get away. And over to the side, Cora’s not yet awake but she’s reacting to their tones, twisting around and making soft whimpering noises.

“You two want to start _again_?” Chris hisses. He’s risen up and is spreading his shoulders, trying to bulk himself up. His eyes are glowing and his fangs have dropped. “Look, it’s over, let’s just—”

“Forget the elk, I’ll get something. My turn anyway,” Stiles says. He hefts the book in his hand for a second, then resigns himself to finishing it tomorrow. Crawls back to put it to the side of the bed, and then shifts out his wings and starts stretching them, getting ready for bed.

Derek scoots over to him, nearly getting a wing in the face. Stiles rolls his eyes but Derek’s realized that Stiles will let them get away with a _lot_ for a furry heated pillow, and has already shifted. So Derek gets the spot right under Stiles’ left wing tonight.

Chris moves to slot in on the other side, but Cora’s blocking his way. He pauses, then starts to retreat to his normal spot on the edge of the bed. But Derek shuffles down, more by Stiles’ knee. He looks very annoyed about it, and even snarls a little as Chris, looking very bemused, settles by Stiles’ shoulder, but then he puts his head between his paws and seems to go to sleep.

“You’re good with kids,” Laura says. She and Peter have just been sitting there, staring, but now she scoops up the bone animals. She juggles them in her hands for a few seconds, then turns away to put them somewhere, shaking her head.

“Well, you’re the rare single-egg clutch, everybody else seems to think you should babysit their nests, so you don’t miss out on having nestmates pile all over you,” Stiles snorts. “Hey, you care what we get to eat?”

Laura starts to answer, her head and arms over the side of the bed. Then she stops. She pulls herself up and very deliberately looks at Peter, who raises his brows—and whose shoulders sag a tiny bit in relief. The corner of Laura’s mouth quirks and she looks away. 

“No. Just at least the size of an elk, so we’ve got something to dry for later,” Peter says. He moves onto his hands and knees like he’s going to shift and then pauses. “Your turn?”

“Yeah, I haven’t gotten anything in a while,” Stiles says, already half-asleep. They might be annoying and complicated and weirdly good at getting him into trouble, but they are definitely the best nestmates he’s ever had, toasty warm.

Peter and Laura don’t say anything, and soon they’ve wolfed out and added their balled-up bodies to the pile. Stiles is still getting a strange, puzzled air from them, but they don’t seem inclined to hash it out right now, and he’s completely happy to wait on it, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stymphalian birds again for the idea of being able to launch metal feathers like tiny guided missiles, but generally, Stiles' fighting style is based on how big cats like lions and leopards kill their prey. Because he's on the ground; if I were writing him fighting in the air, I'd write him fighting more like a bird of prey (if anyone is interested in my geeky background details).
> 
> Cutting off the head is a common folklore method for ensuring things can't be resurrected after death. Laura's concerned that Talia might manage it.
> 
> I have the Hales living primitively and mostly naked because in a world where you have to make all your own clothes and can't just go to the store, I don't think you'd want to keep losing clothing because it gets torn up by a shift. They do appreciate human trappings and will normally use them, they just aren't in a position to do so at the moment.
> 
> Yes, that history book was totally written by judgy judgy Deaton.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning is so chilly that Stiles caves and asks if they’ve got something he can put on. His hindfur is just about enough to keep things below the waist from freezing—it’s getting thicker and coarser, he notes—but he can’t go jumping through the trees if his hands and arms fall off from frostbite.

Laura pulls up the furs and digs through the assorted chests under them till she finds a shirt that fits Stiles. The sleeves are actually a little short so Chris cuts strips off one of the smaller furs, which Stiles wraps around his wrists, and then Laura and Chris…decide to go back to sleep with Cora.

“They’ve been doing all the hunting, they’re worn out,” Peter says. Because he’s decided he’ll come, even if he’s got to babysit Derek for it.

And even if they have to stop every mile for him to catch his breath. He looks a couple times like he might apologize, but then Derek will do something stupid, like kick into a rotten log and get his claws stuck, or roll his eyes at Peter’s panting, and Peter instead lectures Derek on all the animal signs he’s missed. It’s kind of funny, and it’s also kind of revealing about why Laura had looked a little dubious about letting Derek go.

“Stay put for a second, I’m going up,” Stiles says. He strips off the shirt and leaves it with them, and climbs a tree.

It’s sunny and it’s not teeth-chatteringly cold now, at least. The wind is still full of ice but it’s also blowing strongly enough to give him a good sampling of scents from all around the area. Of the larger animals, he picks up elk, bear…boar, but he thinks he can do better. Couple large wildcats. And…a little further out, he gets moose.

“I think it’s coming from the valley over there,” he says when he’s back on the ground. “Anything weird about it?”

“I realize this contradicts everything you’ve seen since you got here, but this region is normally quite ordinary,” Peter says. Latin or English, he still manages to be both sarcastic and entreating. “It’s just a valley. At most there’ll be a cave bear—we haven’t been through in a while, one might have moved in.”

“Well, I figured I’d better check,” Stiles says, annoyed.

The valley is within Peter’s range for not having to stop, so they head over. Peter’s very quiet, to the point that Derek starts shooting him scowling, nervous looks, but they make it down without incident, and then pinpoint the moose in a small pond.

Water. Great. Normally, Stiles wouldn’t mind, but he is way too cold for that now. They take up an overlooking position on a hillock to consider their options.

“I’m not getting my wings out if I’m going to fall into that,” Stiles says, pointing at the pond.

“Can you not swim?” Derek says.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “No, of course I can swim, but you don’t use wings for that. Also, if they get wet, they take forever to dry out.”

“Well, you can’t fly anyway, right?” Derek says. He hunches when Peter aims a little growl in his direction. “Sorry.”

“I can’t, but getting them wet is just going to slow my feathers growing back even more. But I can’t jump as high without them out,” Stiles says after a moment. He rubs at the side of his face, looking at the moose. “Fine. You stay here, make a lot of noise, scare it. I’m going to the other side and I’ll climb a tree and get it when it comes out.”

Derek keeps hunching, and adds big, pleading eyes to that. “Why can’t Peter do that? Can I go with you?”

Peter ups the growl to a snarl. “Derek. He’s not Laura, stop it.”

“You know what, whatever, it’s going to run off at this rate,” Stiles says, turning away.

The moose does have its head up, legs stiffly straight. But it’s looking up at the sky, not at…Stiles follows its line of sight and picks out a small, swooping patch of black. He blinks hard, then grins and jumps over the other two, into the nearest tree. Forgets all about the moose, just scrambles up as fast as he can.

As soon as he gets to the top, he roars. The patch dips sharply, and then there’s an answering roar. Stiles laughs and snaps out his wings, beating them till the tree starts to bend with the force of the wind that stirs up. Roars again.

Peter’s shouting at him, but the other sphinx is diving steeply at them. Stiles swings from the tree, then jumps up into the air and grabs the sphinx just as they pull out of the dive.

“Scotty!” he yells, cuddling his friend. “Scott, Scott Scott Scott, this place is so _terrible_ , you have no—”

“Stiles!” Scott yelps. Because right, kind of tumbling uncontrollably to the ground.

So Stiles lets go and they both flip over, just in time to keep from smashing into the dirt. Scott’s cheeks puff up as he blows out a relieved breath, looking at Stiles with his usual wide-eyed, stop trying to _kill_ us expression. Then he huffs out again. He shakes his head, then grins. Takes a step forward—

—ducks as a black blur goes at him. Then Scott’s head pops back up and he stares quizzically at the snarling werewolf. That’s Derek, so—damn it. Stiles launches himself over his friend, and tackles Peter just before the stupid furball goes at Scott’s haunches.

“What are you doing?” Stiles snaps, pinning him. “That’s Scott!”

Peter’s on his back, gasping so hard that he’s going a bit white in the face. He’s got his chin up and he’s making this weird thin noise, even higher than a whine. Stiles frowns and backs up, and then shifts his weight off Peter’s ribcage, in case that’s it. With that gone, Peter’s gasping does slow, but he’s still got his throat stretched out, almost to the point of snapping his spine.

“Don’t kill him!” Derek yells, rushing up. He skids a little short of them, then drags himself back and forth by Peter’s head, blindly clawing at the dirt. “Don’t kill him, please don’t kill him—”

“What?” Stiles says. Then he looks at Peter again. He makes a face and gets completely off, and runs his hand back over his head. “Great, this is another werewolf thing. Alpha thing? Look, anyway, I’m not—I’m not going to kill him. Just, why are you trying to jump Scott?”

“Who?” Derek says.

Oh. “Ah, sorry, that’s Scott,” Stiles says. He looks over his shoulder, where his friend, the politest sphinx that ever lived, is patiently waiting. “He’s flock, he’s my friend. He’s…did you think he was attacking me?”

Peter slowly pulls himself back so he can prop himself up on his arms, and then no farther. He’s still baring his throat. “He dove at you, and then you leaped at him.”

“We were just—we always mess around like—you never do that to each other?” Stiles says, frowning.

“Not like _that_ ,” Derek says. His eyes are still wide, and then he drops onto his forearms and tucks away his trembling hands. “The last time I saw somebody grab like that, Mom was taking Peter off to you.”

“Oh.” Stiles rubs at his hips, then at his knees. He scoots back some more, then gets up. He’s not sure if he needs to—to groom Peter, or rub throats, or something else, so the werewolf stops lying there.

Frankly, he’s not sure he wants to even deal with this. It’s just so—complicated, all the time, and whenever he thinks it’s starting to make sense, it doesn’t.

“Hey,” Scott says, coming up. “Hey, is everything all right?”

“Just a little miscommunication,” Stiles says absently, and then catches the expression Scott is making. “Shut up, it’s not like that at all. Why do you always assume that?”

“Well, you were supposed to visit me _a month ago_ ,” Scott says. He looks around them, then shifts away his wings and pushes up to two legs; he’s fonder of that form than any other sphinx Stiles has ever met. “So. Um. Why are you here?”

Stiles starts to laugh, and claps a hand over his mouth because yeah, he lets that go, it might be a while. He gives himself a hard shake. “Long story. Just…so I need to…”

Scott looks at Derek and Peter, who are _still_ down on the ground, and then at Stiles. Then he looks around them again, shifting back to full sphinx mode. “Oh, you need a minute? Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt—maybe I can go grab something to eat? I’m starv—”

“That would be amazing, Scott, brilliant idea. Get something for everybody else too, all right, there are three more of them and also, they have _winter_ here, seriously, so we need leftovers,” Stiles says. He rears up and claps the other sphinx on the shoulder, then has to grin and hug Scott again, reaching over to comb his hand into Scott’s wing feathers. “But I’m really glad to see you.”

“Yeah, me too. I was worried, I’ve been circling all over the place looking for you,” Scott says. He looks Stiles up and down, and then he goes off to hunt something, because once he knows his flock is fine, Scott is good and practical like that.

Stiles watches him go off, then blows out a long breath. Sets his shoulders and turns around, and pads back to Peter and Derek.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says quietly. He’s flipped over onto his hands and knees, but he’s holding himself so low he might as well be on his belly, and he’s turned flankwise to Stiles, with his throat still angled out.

“I can see where you’re coming from, and I guess it’s not really a bad thing to react like that, if that’s what you thought,” Stiles says. He…has a feeling that’s not going to do the trick, but he still sighs when Peter keeps on hunching down.

He has to pretty much press dirt with his chest to get low enough, but he stoops till they’re facing each other, and then he slides his head and neck along Peter’s, going till he’s nearly touching Peter’s shoulder. Peter shivers, then moves slightly back against him. Stiles does it again, rising a little, and after a few seconds, Peter tentatively follows. They work slowly up till they’re in a normal crouch, not an elbow-crunching one, and then Peter whines softly. Tilts his head, pauses, and then noses under Stiles’ jaw.

He’s not rubbing anymore, he’s…he has his head turned so that he’s facing into Stiles’ shoulder, pressing the back of his head into Stiles’ throat. His own throat pushes up against Stiles’ mouth, and then again. 

Stiles isn’t sure what that’s about and he gets his hand up and grabs Peter’s shoulder, then the back of his head. He gives Peter’s hair a couple strokes and Peter leans into it, but puts his throat back up by Stiles’ mouth. So Stiles wraps his hand over the side of it and Peter shudders sharply. Stiles almost lets go, but then Peter slumps into him.

And doesn’t seem like he’s going to move any time soon. When Stiles moves his head to be fully on Stiles’ shoulder, Peter just shifts his knees to adjust. Stiles looks around, absently patting Peter’s neck, and then sees Derek.

The boy comes slowly up on Stiles’ other side, head lowered, but not nearly as flat as Peter had been. He and Stiles rub cheeks and throats and then he sits back, apparently satisfied. He doesn’t seem surprised at all about whatever Peter is doing.

Derek does, however, look worried. He fidgets for a while, and then abruptly moves to plaster himself to Peter’s hip, still looking at Stiles. “Are you leaving?” he asks.

Peter lifts his head out of Stiles’ grip, sucking in a breath. He has a bit of a wild look in his eyes, but then he smooths out his face into a neutral blankness.

“Since your friend’s here,” Derek adds reluctantly.

“I can’t fly, and Scott can’t carry me by himself, so no,” Stiles says after a moment. Which is true, and which is so irritating to admit that he has to get up and kick at the ground. And then he sighs and sits back down. He’s getting used to being stuck, he thinks darkly. “Anyway, he went off to get food. When he comes back he and I need to talk—oh, so he doesn’t know Latin. Um, just…smile at him, that usually works.”

Derek blinks hard, then snorts and starts picking out some twigs that’ve gotten into his hair. The moment Stiles said ‘no,’ he relaxed.

Peter is not as easy, but he doesn’t say anything, just rubs at his neck where Stiles had gripped it. He grimaces, then shifts over onto one hip and works on rubbing out gravel that’d gotten punched into his skin when Stiles had tackled him.

He goes a little tense when Stiles joins in on that, but then he lies down completely and turns over onto his belly. Stiles pauses, then shrugs and climbs astride Peter. He pushes his hand up Peter’s spine and through his hair, and then sits back and starts winkling out the rocks in Peter’s back. Peter shivers a little, lets out a low sigh, and finally relaxes.

* * *

Scott doesn’t get the moose. Scott brings back a muskox.

“How do you even find these things,” Stiles says, shaking his head. Because much as everybody is delighted with the meat—and with the pelt, which has the longest fur Stiles has ever seen—he still doesn’t understand how you can plop Scott anywhere and have animals show up that haven’t shown up in hundreds of years.

Scott shrugs, grunting, and then hefts off the last of the hide along with Laura. “I…flew?”

“Smartass,” Stiles says fondly.

“Yeah, well, how did you end up getting blown here?” Scott says. He licks off his fingers, and then drops down next to the belly, where Derek and Cora are already digging out the organs. They immediately back off and he frowns, then looks at Stiles, who shrugs. He hesitantly picks up the heart, which is his favorite, and then tosses Stiles the liver. Then he moves out of the way, giving Cora an encouraging smile when she makes a tiny movement towards the belly.

Scott also learned English at some point after leaving their birth flock, which means everybody else is listening really hard while pretending to be butchering the muskox. They’d sent Derek ahead to explain, so Chris and Laura and Cora didn’t rush Scott when he showed up, but all three of them are still warily eyeing him. Laura keeps shifting so that she’s between him and the den entrance, and Chris has reverted to monosyllables.

“This horrible storm caught me when I was crossing the, um, I think it was the Cordilleras,” Stiles says, munching happily on the liver. He bolts about half of it and then tosses the rest at Chris, who he knows also likes it.

Chris barely avoids getting it in the face, so busy is he with not-listening listening. He flushes a little in embarrassment, then hides that by moving to help Peter cut off a hindquarter from the muskox.

“And it yanked out all your primaries?” Scott says incredulously.

He’d also been trying to lure Cora back by putting his foot under the lungs, which Cora keeps eyeing, and making them jiggle. She’d almost edged within grabbing range, but now she scampers back behind Laura. And Derek, who is in wolf form and who is actually _more_ expressive that way, flattens his ears and clamps his tail down, though he at least isn’t deterred from tugging a strip of belly meat away from Scott.

“Well, other stuff…happened,” Stiles says, waving his hand vaguely. Mealtime is maybe not the best time to go into that. “Anyway. So. Um, how are things? Canyons still fun?”

“Oh, they’re great,” Scott says, in a very mediocre tone. He tosses the last of the heart into his mouth, and then shrugs as he cuts himself a piece from the right shoulder, helping Laura to crack that leg out of its socket at the same time. “Uh. Well. I mean, they’re great for flying and all, and there’s lots of space, it’s just…I’m, um, I think I’m going back. For a little bit.”

Stiles raises his brows. 

Scott slumps. “There wasn’t really anybody I wanted to flock with,” he finally admits. “I mean, they’re nice and all, but they just…I don’t know, it didn’t work. And I haven’t seen Mom in a while, I just figured…see her, think about what to do, that’s all. Oh, but if you still want to see the canyons—”

“I think right now I’d settle for a hot spring. You know, nothing big, just hot water for once,” Stiles mutters. He’s purposefully not looking around at all the nervous werewolves skulking about. “It’s so _cold_ here.”

“I don’t think it’s too bad.” Then Scott pretends to huddle down, even though he’s got a grin sneaking around his mouth. “Well, anyway, I’ll definitely stick around a few days and keep you company, I spotted some thunderheads coming down from the north. If that’s not a problem?”

“Oh, it shouldn’t—” Stiles starts, and then he shakes his head. He looks at Laura, since she’s still got the red eyes, even if she and Peter seem to be tossing leadership back and forth (and sometimes letting Chris catch the ball when they’re too busy squabbling). “It’s fine, right? He can fit in my cave. I guess it’d be a little tight up here…”

Laura goes into what Stiles is coming to think of as the whacked-face stance, wide blank eyes and slight frown and slightly panicked air. He…probably should bring that up at some point, the whole him killing Talia thing. He’d kind of dismissed it as Derek and Cora just being the youngest, especially since it’s not like the adults ask him what to do; if anything, they actively avoid discussing their plans in front of him. But the mounting evidence is getting hard to ignore.

“He’s your flock, right?” she finally says. “Of course. If—if he wants to sleep up here, we could probably get some more boxes and make the bed bigger. We were going into town anyway…”

She looks at Chris, who is almost painfully grateful for a practical question to handle. “My father’s books,” he says to Stiles. “I think so. But if we want to get all of them at once, I don’t know where we’ll get a wagon.”

“Oh, can I help?” Scott says. “Are you talking about that town by the oxbow? That’s just a couple minutes’ flight, it’d be easy.”

“I don’t know if you want to actually fly over the town,” Stiles says, seeing the look on Chris’ face. “They’re, um, a little…clueless up here.”

Scott, being Scott, accepts that without so much as an offended snort. “Well, all right, I could wait in the forest? Then you only have to carry it to the treeline.”

Laura and Chris look at each other, and then they nod. They look oddly unhappy about it, like they’d rather figure out a way to wrestle a wagon through the woods, but Chris soon preoccupies himself with drawing yet another one of his little maps, explaining to Scott how the town is laid out. And Laura’s got to herd her siblings, who’ve glutted themselves and who are half-heartedly making attempts to clean off the blood before they stumble over to the bed for a nap.

Peter’s disappeared. Stiles straightens up from the muskox carcass and concentrates, and then picks up the werewolf’s heartbeat just outside the den. It’s over by the drying racks they use for tanning hides, and Stiles can smell a very smoky fire, too, so he guesses Peter’s working on preserving the extra meat. Little strange for Peter to turn down a chance to be nosy, especially about sphinxes, but well, winter. They’re all taking that one seriously.

* * *

After they eat, they’ve got just enough daylight left to get to town and back—Scott could carry one of the werewolves that far and Laura actually looks a little intrigued, but they’d still have to wait for the other so that gets nixed—so Laura and Chris head off with Scott, while Peter settles down around the kids for a nap. The morning must have worn him out completely because he doesn’t even stir when Stiles leaves, and he usually is the first to notice if Stiles does something.

Stiles doesn’t go too far, but he had been gearing himself up for a hunt that he didn’t get and he’s a little restless.

Well, all right, he’s antsy as hell. Glad as he is to see Scott, watching his friend effortlessly soar off over the trees also reminds Stiles, as if he _needs_ it, of how damn stuck he is. So Stiles stalks around for a little bit, and then he goes and he picks a fight with a passing elk.

Peter’s awake again when he hauls it back, though the kids are still snoozing. He comes out and helps Stiles dress the elk. Makes a point of offering Stiles the liver, but Stiles is still pretty stuffed from the muskox and sets it aside for when the others get back. He grabs the heart too, for Scott, and then he has second thoughts about the liver. So he cuts off half and hands it to Peter, who holds it like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I know it’s not your favorite, but it’ll help. Or does that not work for werewolves?” Stiles asks. “If a sphinx isn’t well, first thing you usually do, give them all the liver they can eat.”

“Oh. No, that’s the same,” Peter says. He looks up at Stiles and he’s smiling, but it’s just for a second. Then he turns away. Eats the liver in a couple quick bites, and puts his hands down on the elk to start slicing off strips for drying. “You didn’t make it worse or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was a long time building, and so it’ll be a while healing. But I should be fine in the spring.”

Stiles grunts, busy pulling out the intestines. His least favorite job about gutting things, but Cora had mentioned sausages the other day, and Chris apparently knows how to make them, so they need intact intestines for the casings. Well, mostly intact: much as Stiles tries, he always ends up slicing into it. And it always has to be the really shit-filled end.

“No, this way,” Peter says as Stiles gets up to wash off. He glances over the elk, then tidies up where they are with a few quick motions. Ducks back into the cave to put the really tasty bits out of reach of scavengers, although with werewolf _and_ sphinx scents around, it’d be a really stupid fox or buzzard that tried for them.

Then he leads Stiles off, down the hill and along the cliff face. It’s a few minutes farther than the stream that they normally use, and Stiles is going to ask what’s the problem when Peter abruptly ducks into a little hollow in the bottom of the cliff, following a tiny offshoot of the stream.

The hole is a little tight, but it opens up after a few paces, and then they’re looking at a small but deep pond. Peter pokes around, grabs a couple stones and uses them to plug the end where the rivulet goes into the pond, and _then_ Stiles gets it. Not as good as a hot spring, but Stiles whistles a heating charm and it’s just enough to get the water to lukewarm.

It doesn’t last more than a few minutes either; as small as the pond is, it’s still a lot of water for to keep warm, even with magic. But it’s still way better than what Stiles has been putting up with, and he admittedly spends longer than he needs to soaking in it.

“I should’ve thought of this earlier,” Peter says as Stiles climbs out.

Stiles glances over at him, then arches back on his hands, letting a hard shudder go from his shoulders all the way through his tail-tip to get off the excess water. He relaxes and rubs at his left haunch, then repeats.

“There are some hot springs, but they’re more than a day away by foot,” Peter adds after a moment. He purses his lips a few times, then takes a deep breath. “I don’t know if Scott—”

“Scott can’t carry me,” Stiles says.

Peter has a very odd expression on his face. He’s curious, as always, but he looks like he’s genuinely fighting it this time—like he’s _mad_ at himself for wondering. “He carried that muskox. Surely that’s heavier than you.”

“Have you tried to carry me?” Stiles says. He grins to show he’s joking, and a flicker of amusement does cross Peter’s face but it’s just that, a flicker. “Just because you don’t see my wings doesn’t mean they aren’t there. If you tried, you’d realize I still have all that weight. So…Scott can carry me for short distances, maybe a mile, but I’m too heavy otherwise and it’d be worse if I was wet. And he can’t take off with me, not straight from the ground—you saw that I tossed that muskox up to him after he’d already launched, right? He was barely clearing the trees even then. We hit any bad wind, even just a cross-breeze, and I’d drag him down.”

“Ah,” Peter says, getting it. And also, letting out a tiny relieved breath.

“I’m going to ask him to let my father know where I am,” Stiles says after a moment. He watches Peter very carefully. “Dad’s used to me going off, but this is getting to be longer than I’m normally gone.”

Peter tenses up again, although you wouldn’t be able to tell from his voice. “Is it normal for sphinxes to travel on their own?”

“At our age, yeah, most of us do. We’re old enough to go starting our own flocks, so you go out and look, but it’s not like there’s a huge rush.” Stiles rubs at his hindlegs, and then pulls his tail through his hands a few times, scraping off more water. When he thinks he’s got out as much as he can, he squeezes back through the passage and then looks up the cliff.

It’s kind of a hike up, and they’re actually in a little clearing here, with plenty of sunlight. Enough that Stiles can almost feel warmth on his skin. But…they should get back up and finish with the elk, he thinks sadly.

“Anyway, even if you go, you can always come back to your birth flock. I don’t know what packs are like, but flocks are…well, it’s a strong connection, right, if Scott called I’d come, and vice versa. But that doesn’t mean we’ve got to just stick with each other all the time. They don’t mind if you come and go,” Stiles says. He does stall for a few minutes, grooming his hindquarters. “I mean, there’s this whole world out there. The wind’s always blowing somewhere. It’d be really cruel if you couldn’t follow it, you know?”

“I don’t, but…I think I understand,” Peter says, very quietly, without any sarcasm. If anything, he sounds…sad. He’s not looking at Stiles when he speaks. When he turns back, he’s more somber than usual, but he’s clearly not thinking about anything in the present. “Packs aren’t like that. Maybe because we can’t fly, although we can certainly run when we want to—but no, we’re not like that. You stay with your alpha.”

They start up the cliff. Stiles is mostly in the lead, but for all that Peter’s panting a little, he’s more than agile enough to keep up. He’d match any sphinx, just put fur on his back legs and add a tail.

“Chris said something like that, too, even though he’s human. Was human, when he said it,” Stiles says. He pulls up onto a tiny ledge and waits for Peter to catch up, then resumes climbing when they’re level. “So you never get to leave your pack, even if you want to?”

“Some alphas are more flexible about it than others. But it’s…I don’t think we feel the kind of pull that you’re describing,” Peter grunts. He heaves himself onto another ledge and then takes a few deep breaths. Starts a little when he sees Stiles climb back down to just above him. He raises his hand like he’s going to wave Stiles on, and then…rubs his neck instead, as if that isn’t an obvious dodge. “If it’s a good pack, a good alpha, you don’t want to leave. You know it won’t be any better anywhere else.”

Peter looks up at Stiles for a long, long moment. Then he looks down, smiling ruefully. He flexes his fingers and toes, and then sets his claws at the cliff and pulls up. He’s laughing under his breath at something, and almost gets past Stiles before Stiles catches up.

“Scott,” he grunts, just as Stiles starts to speak. “How long for him to get to your father?”

“Maybe a week, maybe a month. Depends on what kind of weather he runs into. This time of year it can get tricky. We don’t have winter but the winds change direction a lot,” Stiles says.

The last few yards are tricky too, even for Stiles, and he has to concentrate too hard to talk. He keeps looking back, but Peter doesn’t seem to be having any problems. Still, once he’s safely on the shelf outside his cave, he twists around and grabs Peter’s wrist, and then pulls the werewolf up the rest of the way.

Peter leans over and rubs his cheek briefly against Stiles’ shoulder. They’ve all started doing that and as far as Stiles can tell, it doesn’t have a set meaning. It could be anything from thank-you to sorry to cold now, please cuddle. So he just holds still for it and waits to see if Peter moves in.

“And then he’s coming back, after that?” Peter says, shifting back. He’s still smiling but it’s too smooth, too practiced.

“I don’t know what his plans are,” Stiles says, shrugging. “I mean, if you’re worried about other sphinxes showing up—”

“If they’re welcome with you, we have no objections. Although I’ll admit we may not be able to host them like proper guests,” Peter says. He gets up and brushes some dirt off of him, and then walks through the cave, towards the passage up to the den, looking about him to gauge the space. His voice gets tight. “This isn’t an area well-suited to flyers, unfortunately.”

“Yeah.” Stiles looks a little more sharply at Peter, but the werewolf doesn’t turn around till they’re back in the den.

And up there, Derek’s woken up and is puzzling over the elk remains, and Peter immediately starts giving him instructions on what to do. Derek grumbles about it loudly enough to wake Cora, too, and at that point Stiles gives up on asking Peter anything.

* * *

“Well, they want you to stay,” Scott observes. He gets up and stretches out his legs, making little pained noises as his bones crack, and then straddles Stiles again to start in on Stiles’ left wing. “You really, really haven’t been preening. Um, Stiles, this patch is really frayed, I don’t know if I oil it up, it’ll do—”

“Then just rip them out. They’ll grow back faster than the primaries anyway,” Stiles mutters. He braces himself against the pinpricks of pain, then sighs. Pushes his arms out in front of him and taps his claws against the rock. “Yeah. I noticed. Werewolves have this really strict hierarchy, apparently. They call their leader an alpha, and if you kill the current one, you inherit the pack.”

Scott hums soothingly, working his hands up over the bare patch he’s just made. His fingertips curl under the wing and start massaging the oil glands, milking them out, and then he curls his hands to gather up the oil. “Do they know we don’t do that?”

“Yeah, I told them. I think that that’s why they sort of keep me out of things, you know, the older ones know I don’t know what I’m doing.” Stiles can’t help a low groan as Scott hits a knot. He happily flattens out—the rock shelf isn’t quite big enough for this, but they’ve moved out the entrance screens to let him sprawl into the cave—and feels the edges of his right wing flutter over a stray bedfur.

“Or…they don’t want to scare you off?” Scott says, working out the knot. He takes out one hand and smooths down the feathers over it, then scoots to sit about mid-back at Stiles, stretching to reach up the wing’s leading edge.

Stiles pushes his face into the rock, but that feels like, well, rock. So he pushes his other wing out again and catches that bedfur, and flaps it over till he can reach it with his hand. Then he wads it up and sticks it under his face.

“It’s a really crazy story, I have to say, but they seem pretty nice now.” Scott’s being all soothing and encouraging, adding the kind of crooning undertone to his voice that moms do when they’re trying to lure their fledglings into a first flight. Considerate jerk that he is. “I mean, it’s been a while since they got you into a feud, right? That’s good.”

“I feel like you’re trying to talk me into something,” Stiles mumbles. “Scott, my friend, that is _my_ job.”

“I’m not talking you into anything, I’m just…you seem really stressed, I’m just trying to see if we can figure out what it is and then we can take care of it,” Scott protests.

Stiles exhales into the fur. Then he does a warning flap, and when Scott gets off him, Stiles folds in his one wing and rolls half-over to look up at the other sphinx. “I am _grounded_ in a place that has _snow_. Snow, and spiky trees, and no decent cliffs within _walking_ distance, _walking_ , and a bunch of werewolves who keep confusing me,” Stiles says. “That’s what’s wrong, Scott.”

Scott sighs and puts his head down so he can rub his hand over his forehead. “The snow’s going to melt, you know.”

“But it comes back, Scott. Every winter. Because this place has _winter_.” Stiles glowers at his friend, who is totally using his hand to hide a grin now. He flicks his wing out, absently testing the updrafts swirling by the cave, and then he whips it around, zigzagging his feather tips across Scott’s exposed belly.

Scott yelps and immediately doubles over, but he always forgets to shift away his wings. They slap against the roof of the cave, then disappear. But by then Stiles has jumped him, knocking him over and fuzzing his belly with furred knees. Mock-growling, Scott tackles him back, and then—pulls Stiles’ _tail_. It’s always, _always_ the nice ones.

They roll around the cave a few times, and then push free of each other. Stiles crawls over a few inches, so he’s got room, and then flops out his wings. “Ugh. You know, it wouldn’t be so bad if I could just fly a little. Sure, it gets cold high up too, but at least there’s stuff to look at.”

“You’re really being very good about this,” Scott says, grinning. He eels after Stiles and tucks up behind Stiles’ right wing, then puts his hand on Stiles’ back, right between the wing joints. “If you’re just complaining about the cold, wow, these poor wolves have no idea how bad you can get. I was completely expecting the entire place to be on fire.”

“Shut up,” Stiles mumbles.

Scott is emitting a silent but very distinct air of amusement. He rubs Stiles’ back once, following a muscled groove with his thumb. Then, when Stiles groans pleasurably, he slides both forearms up onto Stiles’ back and then pushes in with the heels of his hands, humping over them to get all his upper weight into it.

Stiles groans again, louder, and there’s a rattle of pebbles and then a curse off to the side. He sniffs without thinking, then groans in irritation.

Then he lifts his head to see what’s the matter, but Chris has already left. It is getting kind of late, he thinks. “Probably wants to go sleep,” he says.

“I’m not done with your wing,” Scott says.

“Ah, get it tomorrow. Been forever, like you said, I don’t want to rush,” Stiles says, making himself get up.

The bed’s been expanded more than enough to fit Scott, but Scott shifts off his wings, and is probably about to go full human when wolf-Cora noses up to his haunch, obviously liking his fur. The trip to town went smoothly, according to everybody, but something must’ve happened because Laura came back relaxed enough to rub throats with Scott, and that’s apparently filtered down to Cora.

Wolf-Derek still prefers Stiles and he immediately rolls up into a ball next to Stiles’ belly. Laura settles between him and Cora, and then makes a face when Stiles looks at the empty spots. “Chris and Peter went out to talk,” she says. She looks a little resentfully at Stiles as she does, and then she winces and quickly ducks her head. “They’ll be back eventually, don’t…I don’t think you should wait up for them. Chris is in a bad mood, he’s been touchy ever since we got back from town.”

“We’re not using the cave, they could go down there,” Scott says. He’s teasing Cora with his tail-tip and ignoring Stiles’ glares, because that is setting a precedent that Stiles will not appreciate having to follow once the other sphinx is gone. Then he looks up, sensing Laura’s discomfort. “Sorry, was that—did I say something wrong? I just meant, it’d be a lot warmer…more comfortable…not that I know anything about werewolves…do you just not talk about it…”

“If it’s an alpha thing, I don’t care. They can use it if I’m not in it, just tell them to clean the furs after,” Stiles says. Which just makes Laura look downright shocked. “Um, do you not think I smell it? I mean—yeah, like Scott says, you don’t talk about sex or something?”

Laura stutters a bit, looking all over the place. Then she looks at Cora and at Derek. “They’re—a bit young,” she says. Then she puts out her hand, because Scott looks like he’s just realized he’s landed in a pile of guano. “No, no, it’s all right. They have noses too, you can’t really…I just don’t think they need details yet.”

“Well, we weren’t asking for that. I was just saying they can use the cave,” Stiles says. He pauses. “ _Is_ that an alpha thing?”

“I think so,” Laura says slowly. Then she grimaces. She draws in a breath, stops, and then shakes her head. “I don’t know. Aside from Mom, I’ve only met a couple other alphas. But Mom—she always had her own room, her own things. You weren’t allowed in. Are sphinxes…different?”

“We keep some stuff to ourselves, too, but not something like a nest. Even Stiles shares that,” Scott says, with a little affectionate, yet very pointed, glance Stiles’ way, as if it’s Stiles’ fault he was the only one of his clutch. “I mean, we wouldn’t let in just anybody, obviously, but flock is no problem.”

Laura blinks hard. She starts to ask one thing, then changes to another midway. It comes out garbled and she makes a face at herself, then clears her throat and tries again. “So flock, is that…just everybody you care about, or do you have different—is there a hierarchy? Do you have mates?”

“Flock’s flock,” Stiles says, frowning. “Friends are flock, family’s flock, mates are flock. Yeah, we have mates, we’re not like—like fish, you know, where they don’t even go the same place at the same time to spawn. Why are you asking?”

“Curious,” Laura says promptly. She’s as pleasantly casual as Peter in that moment. “Do you have a mate?”

Scott flushes because she’s looking right at him when she asks. “What, no, I…” he hunches his shoulders a little “…I was kind of feeling out somebody, but it didn’t work out.”

Stiles knew it. Canyon sphinxes were nice, his furry ass. Also, seriously, Scott, he’ll say that to a werewolf he knows only through Stiles but not to his concerned best friend?

“It wasn’t like it got far or anything,” Scott mutters, because he is totally feeling Stiles’ burning gaze on him. “Stop staring, Stiles, I just didn’t think it was a big enough deal to mention.”

“She have a name? Do we know her flock leader?” Stiles says.

Rolling his eyes, Scott puts his head down on his arms. “Kira, and she doesn’t have a flock leader. She’s a kitsuné.”

“Oh, cute,” Stiles says. “Was it the tail? You totally went for the tail, didn’t you? You’re such a sucker for fluffy tails.”

Speaking of, the bed’s not so big that Scott can’t whap Stiles with _his_ tail. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Scott mumbles, pushing his face into his arm. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sphinx court other races?” Laura suggests. She’s lilting her voice like she’s being casual about it, but her eyes are very bright and sharp on Stiles. “If you’re not a sphinx, can you still be flock?”

“Why not?” Stiles doesn’t like how she’s looking at him, but it’s not like she sounds mocking or disgusted. He shifts in place, then absently moves his arm as Derek whuffs against him. “I guess it’d be a little unusual if a sphinx had _no_ sphinx flock, but—”

“Well, there was that one, way down in the desert,” Scott says thoughtfully. “You know. The one who took over that temple library, and made all the scrolls and things in it his flock. But yeah, that’s not normal. I hear that he’ll try and eat you if you return a book late.”

“—anyway, most sphinxes have at least one non-sphinx partner,” Stiles says. “I think mostly because we travel a lot, but not always. Our flockmate Jackson’s been with Lyd—with this banshee since he crashed into the sea on his first flight and she pulled him out.”

Scott wrinkles his face at the mention of Jackson. “Which, if you ask him, is not how it happened, but he is completely lying, just so you know.”

Laura glances at him, grinning a little. Then she looks ever-so-casually back at Stiles. “So what about you? You have a mate?”

“No,” Stiles says.

“Why not?” Laura says.

“Because I haven’t met anybody I feel like mating with,” Stiles says irritably. “Do werewolves need to have one after a certain age, or bad things happen? That why you’re being pushy?”

Laura winces, then drops her eyes and tucks her head down. Then she starts because Scott is snickering loudly behind her.

“Don’t be cranky, Stiles,” he says. “Lydia wasn’t worth it anyway.”

“Oh, for—I’m not thinking about her anymore. Haven’t for a while.” Stiles lashes his tail against the furs, then shifts off his hindlegs and onto his side. He puts his head down and stretches out his wings, then lets those slowly float down to cover the bed. “It’s just—I don’t know, nobody I meet seems to be interested. Not for more than a couple—” he pauses, trying to think of a safe enough term, since he’s pretty sure Cora is still awake “—er, flights or so. Barely better than a heat. Nobody wants to do anything afterward, you know? It’s just I like your wings, thanks, bye.”

“Well, you do talk about stuff like the history of mandrakes, and why unicorns have developed the ability to smell out virgins,” Scott says. “I love you, I do, Stiles, but if we’d ever mated up, I’d be so confused.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “You’re confused anyway. Which is one of my favorite things about you, Scott, don’t change. But…yeah. Well. You snore, anyway.”

Scott makes a face at him. “Do _not_.”

“I’ll wake him up if he starts?” Laura says. She’s still got her head low, and is watching them both for cues, but she seems genuinely amused by their banter.

“Just kick him off the bed, he bounces,” Stiles says. He grins as he closes his eyes, hearing Scott’s outraged protest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite Stiles' protests in an earlier chapter, the sphinxes here do have magpie-ish tendencies, in that they collect people and things they like. They're also more like birds than lions in their group structure since I see them as gathering in bigger groups than a pride structure could handle.
> 
> The sphinx who took over the temple library was inspired by the Greek Sphinx from the Oedipus myth, in the sense that it's taken up a malevolent guardian role. Asian variations of the sphinx also tend to posit them as guardians, but in a good way.
> 
> In case it's not clear yet, Stiles is native to a much warmer region, so he normally goes without clothes because they're not necessary. He also dislikes them because they'd create a lot of wind resistance, which is a big deal for a flyer.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles feels the draft from the entrance and shivers, then lifts his wing. “Hurry up, get in, ‘s cold,” he mutters.

Not to mention that Derek’s gravitated off him and is barely covering Stiles’ feet, and Laura never really sleeps up against him anyway, so he’s short most of his usual werewolf coverage. He shivers again, pushes at the furs so they lump up a little around him, and then raises his head to see what’s keeping them.

Chris is tending the night fire, but Peter comes over and crawls onto the bed. As soon as he clears Derek, he slinks down to his belly, which allows Stiles to lower his wing some. And then his shoulder slides against Stiles’ thigh and Stiles hisses. Peter immediately stops and Stiles glares sleepily at him, then reaches down and feels around till his hand touches Peter’s cheek.

“Why are you so _cold_ ,” he says. His fingers slide over Peter’s hair and it’s that nasty, stiff wet, like sleet whipping over the skin. Then Peter moves away, and Stiles raises the wing again, then rolls his eyes and bats lightly at Peter’s back with his half-grown primaries. “Get in, you’re getting colder the longer you’re out—no, don’t shift, you’ll just be wet _all over_ then.”

Peter hesitates, then slowly moves back. He stops every time that Stiles flinches and finally Stiles just reaches down and wraps an arm around him, and hauls him into place. It’s physically painful to press into him for the first few seconds, but he at least doesn’t make it worse by moving around and dripping everywhere.

“Is it raining?” Stiles asks, when Peter’s started to warm. He didn’t smell or hear it, but Scott had said a storm was coming.

“No,” Peter murmurs. He’s breathing slowly, but it’s very controlled and unnatural. “I…needed to wash.”

Stiles starts to ask why he’d do that when the sun’s not out, and then a sluggish memory stirs. “Oh. Right. Well, thanks, I guess, nice of you.”

Peter goes stiff.

“You can use the cave next time, you know,” Stiles adds. He moves his arm so it’s sitting higher on Peter’s back, straining his elbow less. It also brushes up against Peter’s icy hair that way and the little meltwater trickles on the back of Peter’s neck are unpleasant, but then Peter tucks his head down onto Stiles’ chest, shifting those away. “If I’m not in it.”

“Oh,” Peter says, very, very slowly.

The furs at the edge stir as Chris gets on. At least, he starts to get on, but it’s like he just put his hands on and then he stopped. “It’s fine,” he says. His voice is so low and so rough that at first Stiles takes it for an unusually long grunt. “We don’t need it.”

Peter twists his head. “Chris—”

“I don’t—” Chris says, much louder and more sharply. Then he cuts himself off because Laura’s looking up. He looks at them, then abruptly pushes off the bed. Goes back to the fire.

“He’s sleeping over there,” Peter says after a long silence. He glances up at the wing Stiles is still holding up. “He wants to, Stiles.”

Part of Stiles wants to just put his wing down and go back to sleep. The cold, grounded, irritated part who thinks he’s already been way, way more patient and generous with this place than he’d ever be back with his father’s flock, let alone somewhere he doesn’t like. But another part of him…which is not stupid, even if Scott hadn’t gone off and started poking at stuff Stiles had been trying to not think about, that part doesn’t like seeing Chris curled up all by himself.

That part points out that if he really didn’t give a damn, he’d just have _walked_ home to his father’s flock. He’s stubborn enough.

Stiles sighs and pushes free of the others. He pauses to shift away his wings, then climbs down from the bed and pads over to Chris. “Really?”

Chris has a fur wrapped around himself, but he’s not even shifted to wolf. He’s got goosebumps so big that even without super night vision, Stiles can see them on his arms. “I’m fine. Go back,” he says.

“I could smell you two from the start, it’s not like I care,” Stiles says.

“Stiles,” Peter hisses from the bed. “Stiles, listen—”

Chris’ eyes flare. In the firelight they don’t just glow, they burn like somebody’s set stars in his head. He knots himself even tighter, till his bones are jutting at the joints, and then he presses his head down but edges away from Stiles. “Please go away,” he grits out. He takes a ragged breath, eyes closing, and then he speaks again. Very soft, very resigned. “Please.”

“Stiles?” Scott whispers.

Well, great, at this rate they’ll all be up. Stiles…there’s something off about how Chris looks, but he backs off. He pauses when Chris’ head goes up again, but Chris is just looking surprised that Stiles actually did as he was asked. Because apparently, alpha werewolves are just gigantic tyrannous assholes.

“Is everything all right?” Scott asks as Stiles gets back in bed.

“How should I know?” Stiles mutters. He paws absently at the furs and catches a glimpse of Peter’s very tense face, and then he sighs and lies down, spreads his wing. “Go to sleep, Scott, leave it for morning.”

Though it’s a while before Stiles manages to take his own advice. He keeps half an ear on Chris and the werewolf’s restless, pushing himself up and then lying back down. There’s a strained, harsh note to his breathing, too, like he’s trying to hold back from panting, and every so often he slides out of his fur so that he has to be lying on nothing but cold dirt and stone. He still sometimes throws on a shirt, but he’s naked tonight, and he was just as damp as Peter. When Stiles finally falls asleep, Chris is still moving around.

* * *

“Do werewolves get sick?” Scott asks.

He’s working at Stiles’ other wing again. They’ve moved out to the very top of the cliff, which is actually less ideal in terms of how much sunlight gets through the trees. But Chris had taken off even before they’d all woken up, and both Laura and Peter had been very insistent that Stiles not go after him. Peter had at one point started to bare throat again, and that and the fact that Chris is still near enough for Stiles to track by heartbeat are basically why Stiles had finally agreed. But he can’t hear Chris from the cave, so top of the cliff was the compromise.

“Well, they get not well, I know that,” Stiles says. He fluffs out his feathers so that it’s easier for Scott to get under them. “They were supposed to bring back books on werewolves. I should ask where those are, come to think of it.”

“Wouldn’t they just tell you if you ask?” Scott says. Then he gets off Stiles and comes around so that he can look Stiles in the face. “Stiles, I went out and checked the weather. Those thunderheads moved over, I think it might be better if I try and take off ahead of it. Get that wind behind me.”

“How soon?” Stiles immediately says.

Scott fidgets. “Probably…this afternoon. Hey, you know, if you really want, I can stay for longer. It just…”

“…seems like you’re getting in the way? I don’t know, Laura seems like she doesn’t mind you,” Stiles says.

Scott both blushes and looks completely disgusted with Stiles. “No thanks, Stiles. Not that she’s not—she’s pretty, and I’m sure she’ll be a great catch for somebody, and Stiles, stop trying to distract me.”

“Well, you’re doing a terrible job of distracting me,” Stiles mutters. He lifts his wings into a breeze, then curves one around to check on his primaries. The ones the gale tore out are almost fully in, but the other ones are, well, they’re about where they should be, which is way slower than Stiles would like. “And don’t even say, you can come back whenever you want—”

“If it wasn’t cold, would you mind so much?” Scott says. Looks very proud of himself for thinking up that new angle, he does, and then he sighs and stretches out next to Stiles.

“They’re just playing to their alpha,” Stiles says after a moment.

Scott starts to get that mulish expression on his face. “So what if they weren’t?”

“Then they’d still want an alpha, and an alpha stays put and takes all their things and orders them around,” Stiles snaps. He flaps his wings in irritation, then puts them away and rolls over onto his back. Then onto his side, so that he’s facing out over the den. “I’m still a sphinx, you know. I fly. You know how much I miss flying, Scott? I miss it. I miss it like nothing else.”

“Stiles, it’s not like they’re cutting off your wings. They gave you a _cave_ ,” Scott says. He starts to go on and then just shakes his head. Twists around and runs his hand through his own wing feathers, then shakes out a handful of pine needles that’d blown into them. “Look, do you want them or not?”

Sometimes Stiles hates having a best friend, because Scott’s so good at calling him out.

“I wasn’t looking. I just got caught in a storm,” Stiles finally says. He rubs his hand against the ground and his claw drags a little, and he puts that finger up and pulls off the fraying claw sheath with his teeth, then spits it out. “Scotty. I’m terrible at—at this. I mean, the last time I tried—”

“Well, that was with a sphinx, and these are werewolves, so you should probably do something different anyway,” Scott says firmly. Almost manages arrogant, even. And then he goes and ruins it by looking concerned. He reaches out and wraps his arm over Stiles’ neck, riffling his fingers into Stiles’ wing feathers. “I really hate Lydia sometimes.”

Stiles looks sharply at him. “Hate?”

“Strongly dislike, fine,” Scott says, rolling his eyes. “Anyway. I know you two ended up friends, but I don’t like that she never just _said_ she wasn’t looking for more than that. You did all that stuff for her—”

“No strings attached, no expectations,” Stiles points out. “That was always clear.”

“Still. It was a lot, and I know she thanked you. And I know, you have your unspoken admiration thing, but still. I think she should’ve been honest with you,” Scott says.

“They haven’t said anything either,” Stiles says after a long pause.

Scott looks at him. “Did you ask?”

Stiles hates Scott. Hates him. And no, not really, he loves him. He just—he wishes he could fly. He thinks his head would be a lot clearer if he could get off the ground and just ride the wind for a while.

“So I was going to finish your wing, but Laura also asked if I could get in another hunt today,” Scott says. “I think I got most of it. You can probably get the rest.”

“Yeah. Yeah, no, hunt is a good idea, especially if it’s a bad storm coming in,” Stiles says, sighing. His weight sags over as Scott gets up, removing his leaning post. Then he reaches out and taps Scott’s tail. “Hey. Thanks for looking for me. And just—just tell Dad I’m fine.”

“Sure,” Scott says, and then he launches himself into the air.

Forgets about his backdraft, as usual, and gets a bunch of dust over Stiles’ newly-groomed feathers. Stiles sighs, shaking his head, and then—half-heartedly flaps his wings a couple times. Sits back down, checks where everyone is. Laura and Derek and Cora headed over to the stream with some laundry, and are still there.

Chris is actually coming back to the den. He’s going at a slow walk, and when he finally appears, he’s lucky he hasn’t frozen in place at that rate. He’s dripping wet.

“Did you fall into a pond?” Stiles calls down.

He takes a couple more steps, then one rough one back, looking up angrily. His eyes are glowing faintly at the edges, and he keeps opening and closing his hands.

“Leave me alone,” he grates out. Then he makes as if to go into the den.

Stiles pushes himself off the ground. That’s all, nothing else, but Chris skids back into a growling crouch, eyes burning bright as furnaces, and twice as hot. Fur starts to ripple up his arms and over his back, and then he jerks his head to the side and that stops. He breathes hard, chest and shoulders shaking with it, and shakes his head. Does it again.

His head whips up as a pebble rolls away from under Stiles’ foot. He rocks back onto the balls of his feet, stretching his arms straight out and letting his hands slide apart in wide, twin arcs. His fangs drop. He shakes his head a third time, working his jaw; spit’s gathering at the corners of his mouth, vibrating every time he breathes. Every breath has a snarling undertone to it.

“Chris!” Peter snaps from inside the den. Then he barks sharply.

In answer Chris just shifts further back onto his feet. He peels up strips of the ground, then flicks them away from his claws.

Stiles slashes his tail to the side. Chris’ eyes follow it—and then they snap back to the den entrance as he jerks upwards. He looks like he’s lunging forward.

He sounds like it, too, snarl rising rapidly to a full-on roar, and that’s it. Stiles jumps down onto him.

Chris twists up and to the side, stabbing at Stiles’ belly with his claws. Where he thinks Stiles’ belly is, anyway—with this kind of height advantage, it’s easy for Stiles to turn around mid-air and then take the werewolf down from behind. He grabs onto Chris’ shoulders, and then, as his weight comes down, he pulls up his hindlegs and sinks his claws into Chris’ hips. Hates to do it, but he needs the grip, Chris is already trying to buck him off.

They go down, Chris underneath and half-on his belly. He throws out one arm and catches at the ground, then gets his knee up under himself and makes a strong effort at flipping them over, but Stiles just pulls himself further onto the man and rides him. Then lets his weight do all the work, flattening Chris as Chris’ footing slips out from under him.

Something rushes in at the side and Stiles barely remembers it’s probably Peter, and just limits himself to a warning snarl. It stops a few feet short.

Chris also reacts, going stiff for a split second. Then he bucks again, but it’s already weaker. Stiles releases one shoulder to snatch Chris’ flailing wrist out of the air and then slam it down, and then he heaves himself up and bends over and snaps his teeth together just short of Chris’ nape. His wings come out and he beats them once, driving himself downwards.

He’s so close he can hear the strain on Chris’ bones, hear when they’ve just reached the point of breaking. Right then Stiles yanks his feet off. Blood rakes up in his claws’ wake; he doesn’t have the space or, frankly, the trust to just lift them and then put them down on the ground. He sits on Chris instead, planting his knees on either side of the werewolf. That keeps Chris down but gives him the space to breathe.

Which Chris does in a great, gasping rush. Except for that he’s still, his face pressed against the ground. Then he starts struggling again, but it’s different, it’s less—he’s going side to side, not up like he would be if he were still trying to get at Stiles. He gasps again, then lets out that air in a long, shaking whine. His back arches and then his hips rock, rubbing his buttocks up into Stiles.

“He’s in heat,” Peter hisses. He’s still a few feet back, but he’s shifting feverishly from hand to hand, watching them. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s not trying to kill you.”

“I thought he was going after you,” Stiles says. He looks hard at Peter. “Was that what you did last—”

“No. No, we were just trying to—he ran, tried to wear himself out, and then we fucked.” Peter laughs roughly. “Hoped it’d take off the edge.”

“I—get off, ‘m sorry, I came back too soon,” Chris rasps. He’s fighting with every word, voice thick and gravelly, digging his claws down like he wants to try and wrestle Stiles again. And then he goes back to the whining, bowing his neck and rubbing his cheek against the ground. He feels clammy but he acts like he’s got a fever. “Got so cold I didn’t feel it, thought it might be over.”

Stiles doesn’t do that, but he shifts so that Chris isn’t forced over one arm. And he grabs that arm when Chris unfolds it from under him, because he’s not stupid. He figures that the gashes on Chris’ hips have to have healed by now, so he starts working his weight backwards, lowering himself so he can press his whole torso into Chris’ back. “What’s heat like for werewolves?”

Chris makes a wild, angry sound, cutting off Peter’s answer. “ _Now_? Now, no, no, get off, you don’t want to know.”

“Then why am I asking?” Stiles snaps. “What’s going to hurt you? What’s going to kill you?”

“It’ll get over with, I just need to—get away, get _off_ ,” Chris snarls. He’s twisting frantically, the competing urges temporarily ceding to panic. “Get off, get off, you don’t care anyway—”

Werewolves seem to be all about the side of the throat but Stiles doesn’t have the angle, or the time, for that. So he treats Chris like a sphinx. Flattens down on him, bites sharply but shallowly at his nape, and then pulls in his wings so that the tips are brushing over their legs.

Chris goes so stiff and so still that Stiles checks for a heartbeat. It’s there but it’s thumping hysterically, like the worst of hailstorms. Skips as Stiles sucks in his breath, and then it suddenly levels out. Slows down, almost to the point of faint, and all Stiles is doing is breathing on him.

Stiles shifts up slightly and Chris whimpers, cants his hips back. So Stiles lets his weight down again, puts his head on the back of Chris’ neck. Starts pushing his hindlegs back so that they’re lying straight alongside Chris’ legs. Chris whimpers again, but it’s slower. He’s shivering and those start out quick and violent, but soon they’re just slight trembles as he goes slack. His breathing is calm. His face, what Stiles can see of it, isn’t happy, but he doesn’t look like he’s fighting a thousand things at once.

“Does he need to fuck?” Stiles says. He tilts his head to look at Peter, who’s so slumped with relief that his head is between his arms.

Peter looks up, blinking like he’s just woken. His eyes clear and he looks them over, then cautiously lies down where he is, propped up on his forearms. “No, you can get through heat without that. It would make it go faster, but…no.”

Stiles nods and pushes up. He’s just trying to get comfortable but Peter goes rigid. “What?”

“If you…stay on him, that will help,” Peter says. He pauses, eyes on Stiles’ face. “We know you’re not an alpha werewolf, Stiles, but you…register as one. If you keep him down, just hold him, it’ll help him.”

“You don’t have to,” Chris mutters. “I can go.”

Stiles doesn’t move. Chris wrenches his head around so that he can get one eye on Stiles. He looks like he’s going to say something. Argue, curse, yell, something like that, and then his face twists up in something very close to, but not quite, pain. Then he spits out a sigh. He relaxes again, that eye half-closing in exhaustion.

“Do you want me to get off?” Stiles says.

The eye shuts completely. Squeezes tight, then goes back to just plain closed. “No,” Chris says after a long silence. “No. He’s right. This is—it’s helping.”

“It shouldn’t last more than another day or so, it’s his first,” Peter adds. His eyes drop to Chris, and then to his hands, which are fidgeting with each other. “I’m sorry, it came up very fast. I—we were hoping since he turned so close to heat time, he’d just skip it.”

“So you have it in winter,” Stiles says, and then hisses. “Wait, are you and Laura—”

“We’re not well enough to have one this year,” Peter says immediately, and tightly. He purses his lips a few times, eyes distant but distinctly furious. Then he looks away, rolls his shoulders, and returns a calm gaze to Stiles. “Laura’s still an alpha, she might manage a delayed one in the spring if we don’t have any food shortage over the winter, but it’s already too late for me. And the children are far too young, so you don’t need to worry about them.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, because it seems like he should say something.

He’s got his legs fully extended behind him now, but they keep catching and then sliding free on Chris’ legs, because of the blood sticking between them. Stiles considers the werewolf under him, then decides Chris is calm enough. He lets go of one arm and Chris inhales abruptly, but just tucks that arm up against him. So Stiles risks reaching down and swiping at the blood.

Once his fingers are covered, he licks them clean. Then he does it again. Chris sniffs, then cranes his head around. When he sees what Stiles is doing, his mouth twists like he’s going to snarl, but instead he puts his head down on his arm.

“Stiles, you don’t have to,” he mutters. “It’s not your problem, you don’t have to care.”

“Yeah, well, I kind of do,” Stiles mutters back. When he feels Chris go stiff, he looks at his half-cleaned hand. Then puts it down, and yes, that’s Peter, eyes wide and the rest of his face trying desperately not to show any emotion. “I don’t know…I do, it’s annoying, but I do.”

Peter slowly sinks till he’s lying fully on his belly, his chin pressed to the ground. “You’re planning to leave,” he says, quiet and matter-of-fact, but with that slight drag at the end, like he can’t help it.

Stiles makes a face. He starts running his hand through Chris’ hair, then sighs as he realizes he’s getting blood in there now. Shifts down and puts his face on Chris’ nape again, looks at Peter.

“I’m a sphinx. I want to fly,” he finally says. He reaches out and touches Peter’s cheek, then sifts his fingers back into Peter’s hair, just over the ear. Getting blood there, but whatever. “It’s not the same as leaving for good.”

Peter is still. He doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t even blink. Then, like he thinks he could break something if he puts a finger wrong, he eases himself across the intervening space. Stiles’ hand runs through his hair and onto his neck, and when Stiles starts to move it back, Peter gives him a minute shake.

“No,” Peter says. “Please.”

So Stiles curls his hand over Peter’s neck, and Peter kisses him. Just as slow and as tentative as he’d been moving, making an aching noise deep in his throat that flutters against Stiles’ fingers. Then Peter draws back, but just so he can push his face into Stiles’ neck.

“Bite,” he says, almost a whisper. “Please.”

Stiles nips his throat, and Peter shudders and collapses, his hips swaying down to the side. He barely keeps from falling on Chris’ head—and Chris is shivering again, shivering and voicing low, small, yearning sounds. Chris cants his nape up and it’s so like a sphinx that Stiles instinctively bites it.

Not like with Peter, it’s a gape-mouthed bite with just the fang tips, and then Stiles closes down and seals his lips around the spot, sucking the skin up against his teeth. Chris cries out, rough and begging, and arches from the hips up. His knees push Stiles out of the way, his buttocks force up till they’ve tucked Stiles’ cock between them, up against a damp, surprisingly warm slickness.

“Please,” Chris moans. “Please, please, before you go—”

Stiles wants to say he’s not going _now_ , except a sudden, sharp flare of heat’s rocketing through him. It knocks him off-guard, almost literally knocks him off Chris; he snaps his head to the side like he’s been slapped. Chris can’t possibly know—but Chris is whimpering and begging, rubbing himself so hard that he almost catches the tip of Stiles’ cock with his hole, and then there’s Peter, neck still tucked into Stiles’ hand, pushing the top of his head into Stiles’ shoulder and making low, inviting noises.

So Stiles doesn’t say a damn thing. He pants as his body starts to light up, nerve by nerve, and then he puts his head down again and puts his teeth back in Chris’ nape. Puts his hands on Chris’ hips and presses them down, holding them still so he can slide his cock up against the werewolf’s ass, along the thigh crease. Chris doesn’t fight it but he starts clawing up the ground by his head, and then he twists over and he grabs Peter, pulls him down and they kiss fiercely, familiarly. And even then, they’re arching back their shoulders, showing their throats.

It doesn’t mean the same for sphinxes but right now, right in this moment, Stiles thinks he feels what it means. He pulls his mouth back from Chris’ neck and snarls a little, watching it, pumping his hardening cock faster against Chris, and then he pushes Chris over and plunges into the werewolf.

Slick but tight, very tight, and clamping around Stiles’ cock immediately. He snarls again, sweeps up his wings and Chris loosens just in time for the downbeat driving Stiles inwards. All the way, and Stiles lets the momentum slide him up Chris’ back till he’s biting at Chris’ nape again. He’s not as gentle, can’t help it now, but he laps up the blood as fast as his teeth tear it out. And his thrusts push him too high for the bare skin anyway, so that he’s mouthing at Chris’ hair, snarling and licking at the thick strands.

Chris whines and whines, scrabbling at the ground and trying to keep himself braced. He’s just planted his claws when Stiles comes. His back bows under that thrust and then he presses back. He’s a little uncertain, twitching as he feels the come squeezing out between them. Stiles takes a breath, two, and then he’s getting hard again. He pulls out and then pushes back in, shallow and slow, and Chris perks back up, moaning and rocking against him. 

And then Stiles comes again. This time, Chris’ moan is thick with frustration. He bats at Stiles with one hand. Drops it to sprawl out and groan when Stiles sucks down the side of his neck, reaches around to grab his cock. Stiles works it in between his own erections, then just circles it loosely with his fingers whenever he’s fucking the werewolf. It’s a stutter-stop fuck, yeah, but it’s one that’s pushing Chris further and further into frenzy, reducing him to shaking whimpers and weak pawing at the ground, head swinging limply as Stiles jerks against his ass.

Fifth time Stiles comes, Chris comes with him. Arching so far he’s almost bent back on himself, eyes wide and blind, and then he snaps back and goes limp with a hoarse cry. Stiles catches his waist, and Peter reaches out to catch his head, and between the two of them they settle Chris onto the ground.

“Hey,” Stiles says, still breathless. “Hey, so my heat? My heat’s whenever my partner’s heat is.”

Chris is maybe a little too bleary to understand, but Peter’s still aware enough to look sharply up. Then he laughs. He presses in for another kiss and this one’s rough and hard, and just sweet enough that Stiles only bites his lip once, before grabbing Peter by the neck. Peter goes soft and yielding, moaning into Stiles’ mouth, and then nuzzles at the sweat running off Stiles’ jaw.

“And you come a lot?” Peter gasps. “We don’t, we—we knot, there’s a bulge at the bottom of the cock and it holds it in after. But—but it won’t kill him if—if you d—”

Stiles pulls him in for another kiss, one that Peter doesn’t even try to contest. Then, still licking his mouth, Stiles works out of Chris and pulls himself and Peter down Chris’ body. Groaning a protest, Chris hitches his hips up and to the side, his legs trailing after like they’ve lost their bones. Then he jerks up his knees as Stiles pushes Peter’s head up against his groin, where the come’s covering Chris’ thighs like a thick frost. Peter eagerly starts lapping it up, only to abandon that for moaning as Stiles pushes his legs open and starts licking at _his_ hole.

Chris snarls weakly and Peter noses his way back between Chris’ thighs, though he still stops to moan whenever Stiles slips his tongue into the werewolf. Stiles’ erection can’t wait and he jerks himself off twice before he’s got Peter wet enough for a finger. Peter writhes as it stabs in, pulling his head out and then bucking so it slides up onto Chris’ belly.

There’s still plenty of come on Chris’ thighs, and it’s dripped to his knees at this point, well within reach. Stiles scoops up some and works it into Peter, who’s just slipping higher and higher up Chris, despite Chris trying to push him back down. So Stiles ducks up under Chris’ balls and licks at the mix of slick and come that’s left in and around Chris’ hole. He rubs himself off against Chris’ knee, then pushes up higher. Gets Chris by the hip and turns him back over, and pushes his cock back in.

Chris groans, but he presses back into it. Doesn’t do much more, but that’s fine, Stiles can rock himself to climax. By then Peter’s stretched out enough and is pawing at them, pulling insistently on Stiles’ arm. Snorting, Stiles wrenches out of Chris, nuzzling the back of Chris’ lolling head in apology, and then climbs over him and onto Peter.

He has Peter belly-up, and then he pulls out and has Peter a few more times, belly-down, biting and sucking Peter’s nape till Peter is past snarling and almost sobbing. Heat makes werewolves last longer, apparently, Peter comes much quicker than Chris, but for all his weaker state, he manages to hitch himself on Stiles’ cock through the end of his climax, and then he makes begging noises until Stiles fucks him into a second orgasm.

By then Chris has rolled over, and is butting at Stiles’ shoulder with his head, wanting another round. So Stiles has him again, and then keeps switching between the two till Peter crawls off to the side, barely able to make noises beyond a rough, mewling sound. Then he’s just fucking Chris, and he does that till Chris stops even whining, too exhausted for anything besides breathing.

Stiles’ heat isn’t quite exhausted, but he’s got enough of a hold on himself to stop. He shakes out some of the cramps and aches, and then paces around the two of them. They follow him as best they can with their eyes, but otherwise they don’t move. Limp-limbed, covered in dried and drying layers of dirt and come and sweat, with the odd darker streak of blood. He can’t help dropping down and licking at the backs of their necks, and it takes all that they have, but they roll their heads, tilt up into it.

He sits back, then. Shakes his head, rubs a hand over his forehead and then back through his hair. He’s still jittery, but fucking them—not on his mind, he thinks that’s died off. There’s this other urge instead. Urges. He’s—he’s cold, damn it, cold and dirty and hungry and thirsty, and so are they, they have to be. He—

—jerks back into a crouch, wings metallic and fanned out over them, and then hisses as he belatedly recognizes Scott.

The other sphinx hovers in the air for a second, then cautiously lands well out of lunge range. “Hey. Hey, Stiles?”

“Hey,” Stiles says. He rubs his head again, then shakes his wings back to feathers. Then shifts them away, now that he’s thinking about them.

“Hey, so…Laura’s still got the kids by the river,” Scott says. He pauses so Stiles can panic, realize all of what he’s saying and then blow out a relieved breath. “Yeah, I, um, I saw, and I went and warned her, and she’s fine but it’s kind of getting dark and…”

“Oh, they can come over now,” Stiles mutters. He steps back towards Chris and Peter, absently petting them as first one and then the other pushes his head against Stiles’ arm and leg, respectively. “Well. No. Wait, I—”

“I caught another muskox!” Scott says. He grins and points downwards. “So I left half of it in the cave, and then, you know what, Laura had a bucket, let me get that and I can get some water from the river, too. And I’ll let her know you, um, need to move them in first.”

“Thanks, Scott,” Stiles says, smiling. Best friend ever, definitely.

Scott nods like it’s nothing and takes off again. Stiles automatically snaps out his wings to block the backdraft, and then sits down by Chris. Then gets up, and then grabs Peter and tugs him over so he doesn’t have to move to reach both of them. “So…now I want to clean you and stuff you with meat and roll you up into bed,” he says. He starts licking at them again. “That’s part of it too, all right?”

Peter blinks sleepily up at him, then nods. Chris just grunts, but when Stiles puts a hand on him, he leans into it. Then shudders and flinches a little, when Stiles starts using claws to scrape the filth off him, but Stiles croons like he would to a fledgling and Chris settles down. Slowly curls around till he’s tucked about Stiles. And Peter, he does the same, falling asleep on Stiles’ foot.

Stiles looks at them, and then he looks up at Scott, winging over with a slopping bucket dangling from one hand. He shakes his head at himself, and yeah, he grins.

* * *

So Scott misses his window for leaving, because he’s busy helping Laura get Derek and Cora into the den, and to bed, without them asking too many questions about why Stiles and Peter and Chris are sleeping down in the cave for the night. The storm that blows up is a two-day ice storm anyway, if he’d fallen into it he probably would have come down a solid icicle, so it’s just as well.

It’s clear weather right afterward, however, and somebody really should talk to Stiles’ father before _he_ launches a search party. So Stiles and Scott end up on the top of the cliff again, waiting for the updrafts to steady. 

“So tell your dad you’re fine,” Scott says. “Got it.”

“Also,” Stiles starts, and then he sees movement at the corner of his eye. Derek and Cora are still grumpy about him ‘abandoning’ them, but Scott was stupid enough to drop that he was taking off earlier, and they’ve been nervously tailing Stiles ever since.

The adults aren’t, but Stiles knows they’re sneaking around too, keeping tabs on him. Laura’s down in the den, while Peter and Chris are at the drying racks, well within earshot. They’re all a lot more relaxed around him now, but now and then he still catches them looking wistfully over at him.

They think he’s still leaving, and he’ll just come back to visit. _He_ thinks that, too. His primaries will be fully grown-in after another couple weeks, and then he’ll need a few days to get used to flying again. But after that, he can leave. If he wants.

This place, he thinks, looking out over the trees. It just makes him feel so weird.

“Why is it so cold here,” Stiles mutters. He shivers and hikes the fur he’s brought out higher around his shoulders. Then he flips one end of it at Scott, just as the other sphinx sighs and starts to spread his wings. “Also…could you get my stuff?”

Scott’s head whips around so fast that Stiles is surprised it doesn’t come off his shoulders. He starts to grin and then hastily smooths that away. “Sure,” he says. And then he wastes all of Stiles’ goodwill by breathing in deeply and letting his wings catch on the rising wind. “Honestly, Stiles, it’s not _that_ cold. I think I kind of like it, you know. Makes you wake up.”

“Oh, shut _up_ ,” Stiles says, and then he pushes Scott off the cliff. He scowls till Scott swoops back up, grinning madly, and then he gives and smiles back. “Don’t drop anything! You always do!”

In answer, Scott does a lazy wheel in the air, and then soars off towards the horizon. Stiles watches till he’s a tiny dot, then shuffles to the edge. Hops down and glides to the shelf outside the cave—he’s got enough feather growth for that—and then grimaces as he gets a glimpse of one wing. Scott’s right, he’s really letting them slip.

“What are you doing?” a small voice says, only a couple minutes later.

“Preening,” Stiles says. He scoots around so that his wing’s not blocking the passage and Cora and Derek promptly pop out.

Derek curls up in Stiles’ bed, while Cora comes over for a closer look. But she thinks that the oil Stiles is squeezing out from his glands is gross, and abandons it for her brother.

“They’ll learn,” Peter says, half-scold, half-apology. He pauses in the passage entrance, then drops to hands and knees and crawls over, settling himself across from Stiles. He keeps grinning, and then ducking his head and pretending he isn’t.

Chris is right after him, with Laura bringing up the rear. Laura goes to stop Cora from totally rearranging Stiles’ furs to her liking, while Chris has a book with him. He walks over, but squats down well short of Stiles and then tips onto his forearms before he gives Stiles the book.

“Little late, but…this is something my family’s been putting together for generations,” Chris says, with a wry twist of his mouth. “Everything we’ve learned about werewolves.”

“Well, this should be entertaining,” Peter snorts. He makes a whuffing noise and Derek looks up, then, with a very put-upon face, tosses Peter a fur. Peter pushes it under himself and then curls up closer to Stiles.

Chris growls at Peter, and it’s deep enough to make Laura look over. But then Chris just pushes up on Stiles’ other side. He ducks slightly as Stiles angles that wing a different way, then watches with interest at how Stiles draws the feathers through his claws.

“Want to?” Stiles says. When Chris stiffens, Stiles suppresses his sigh and just folds his wing out of the way, so he can push his arm till it’s touching Chris’ knee. “Somebody’s going to have to learn, it’s hard to reach the ones on my back and Scott’s going to be at least a week.”

“Yes,” Peter says smoothly, getting onto his knees. 

He smirks at Chris, who growls again, much more half-heartedly—and who then neatly flips himself around so he’s sitting up by Stiles’ ribs, right behind the wing, in perfect position. Stiles laughs as Peter makes a face, then catches Peter before he can mirror Chris on the other side.

“No, go on that one, I don’t want to turn my head back and forth to show you both,” Stiles says.

They get the hang of it pretty quickly, although Stiles warns them off the primaries for now. Stiles watches for a few more minutes, then decides he can just monitor them by feel. He turns to the book Chris brought and flips it open. Tries not to croon at how good the claws riffling in his feathers feel.

“Stiles,” Laura says. “So…if sphinx don’t have alphas, what do you call their leaders? Do you have leaders?”

“Well, yeah, of course,” Stiles says, half-distracted by the book. And the preening. “No fancy title, really, just flock leader. They take care of anything from the outside, they keep everyone together to deal with it. But if it’s within the flock we just discuss and then if we can’t agree, we take a vote.”

“Oh,” Laura says. “Oh. Interesting.”

She sounds very like Peter right then, which makes Stiles look up. Laura smiles tentatively at him and he shrugs, then goes back to reading.

“So if Scott’s coming back, can we make him stay too?” Cora says.

“Cora,” Laura says.

“What?” Cora says, frowning. She flops over on her side and then sticks her feet against Derek’s hip. He hisses and pulls away, muttering about ice toes before he wolfs out, and she smiles innocently at him, then cranes around to look at Stiles. “He’s already flock, so it’s a flock thing, right? So we vote? I vote yes, he gives good piggyback rides.”

Laura rolls her eyes. “That’s not what he means, Cora.”

“But if I did, I’d vote yes too,” Stiles says. He and Cora grin at each other, and then he lifts his wings away from Peter and Chris. “That’s good, you don’t want to over-oil them.”

Chris drops his hands, swiping them against his hips, but Peter stares wistfully at the wings for another second. Then he sighs and lies down, snuggling in next to Chris at Stiles’ side. He nudges Stiles’ hip with his head, then rests his head tentatively on Stiles’ back.

“I think he might be thinking about it,” Stiles says. He carefully does not look at how Laura takes that, and instead stretches out his arms and legs so that his weight’s supported by Peter and Chris. “Can’t blame him, really.”

“It’s still cold,” Chris says. Slowly, under his breath, and when Stiles turns he ducks his head under Stiles’ chin and presses his cheek to Stiles’ shoulder, breathing in slow and deep. He backs off to shift to wolf, and then returns to curl up again.

“Yeah. Yeah, well, that’s why you’re all around, right?” Stiles says. He feels Peter wolf out, too, and then Peter’s nuzzling into his back. He flicks out his wings a few times, working out a kink, then carefully folds them over himself and the other two. “I guess it’s not that bad, this way. Not bad at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Stiles', er, mating style is from lions, who do not knot and who instead copulate frequently and quickly during their mating period (which is not season-specific and is pegged more to whenever it seems like a good time to have additional mouths to feed). A mating pair can have sex many, many times in one day--I mean, we're talking in the tens of climaxes, here. Except Stiles does not have penile spines because this is my version of a sphinx and I am not into that.
> 
> Anyway. So they all lived happily ever after, and eventually the Hales built a new house higher up on the cliff, so Stiles can just fly straight into his upper-floor bedroom. Derek and Cora grow up to be fairly well-adjusted werewolves, considering their past trauma. Laura gets courted by various werewolves and has flings or doesn't as she feels like, and enjoys having romantic agency. And Scott comes back, and Jackson and Danny and Lydia eventually show up, too, and:
> 
> "Werewolves, Stiles?" Lydia says. "Really?"
> 
> "You just want one," Stiles says. Then he looks at her. "Well, no. You can't have one. In fact, I hereby lay claim to all fuzzy, homicidal groundbound things. They're mine. All mine."
> 
> "Who on earth would want one, anyway?" Lydia sniffs, and pretends her chilly hands are not in desperate need of a werewolf pup to snuggle on them.
> 
> ...for the record, I really just wanted to write Stiles with wings, and then crack plot and comparative sociology happened.


	6. Missing Scene: Post-Heat Sphinx Rituals

Peter’s been more sore. More often than he cares to think about, in circumstances so terrible that sometimes he wonders whether they, or now, are the dream. But in all his life, he doesn’t think he’s ever been quite this… _overwhelmed_. 

His skin is prickling all over. It’s all healed, all the bruises, the bites, the scrapes and scratches. The chafed spots where he’d been _licked_ raw, licked down till it was pink and hot and sparking with frayed nerves. It’s all healed but he feels like it’s just the thinnest of films, that new skin, so thin that a stray puff of breath sets him to shivering, feeling everything all over again. Mouths, hands, claws and teeth. A whimper slips out of him and he can’t help but stretch into it, even as that strains his skin, sends more shivers down his spine.

A hand strokes across his shoulders, then runs through his hair as he buries his face in a lean, firm thigh. His muscles have all unstrung, like so many snapped bowstrings, but he hitches and heaves himself till he’s curled more tightly around that thigh, mewling as sure fingers chase his shivers over the nape of his neck, along his back and then curve to cup possessively around his buttock.

Another body shifts restlessly against him. Scent’s known, comfortable. The growl makes Peter instinctively snort, push his hips up against it. He wonders blearily at himself when that earns him a weak but irritated cuff, and then he laughs into the furs, rumples them up between him and Chris as a makeshift barrier. The hand on his buttock squeezes a little roughly and he stops laughing, whines instead. Then purrs as it runs up his back to push over and over against his nape, heel of it digging pleasantly hard into the overworked muscles of his neck and shoulders.

The hand presses down a little harder as a body stretches over him and Chris. Normally that would send all of his nerves to jangling, especially when he feels a wave of heat cross the back of his head and neck, but the arch of this particular body is strong and secure, protective. He hasn’t felt any of those things in so long that it almost _hurts_ , how easily he relaxes in its shadow.

Peter wants to roll over, to lay out his throat and belly and close his eyes and just give up, but the last stirrings of rational thought keep him where he is. He does crook his neck, push small yearning noises up over his slack lips. Knead the furs to keep his hands from getting away from him.

The body swings back and then breath steams the back of his neck, long low humming noise tickling the tiny hairs there, spreading minute trembles under his skin from that spot down and out. He remembers he can’t roll over so he hitches in place, whining, inviting a bite, wanting that final claim. Chris is doing the same beside him, dregs of heat still apparent in the occasional demanding growl that slips out.

Teeth nip low on Peter’s nape, sting so light that he mews like it’s a kiss. He twists his head further over, trying to get it to go to the tendons running up the side of his throat, and a long weight settles across him and Chris. 

Stiles makes that humming noise again. It’s some kind of sphinx call, it’s harmonic and undulates like a mother’s lullaby, and as he makes it he slings himself around them, curling so his legs and tail sprawl over their backs while he twists about to nuzzle their faces, rub at their throats with his hand. He laps at their jaws and lips when they nuzzle back, tongue flicking hotly till, exhausted as Peter is, not even in heat, cock defiantly still and limp underneath himself, he can’t help a moan.

Crooning affectionately, Stiles pats Peter’s cheek and hair. He moves in closer and licks roughly at Peter’s upper lip, pushing up with his tongue so Peter opens his mouth. Something slick and still body-warm gets popped in and then Stiles closes in on him again, purring almost like a werewolf, and licks at the bit of blood running from the corner of Peter’s mouth as Peter half-heartedly chews at the meat.

Peter’s full. More than full, honestly, he would’ve fallen asleep ages ago if Stiles had turned away for just a second, but the sphinx hasn’t left them alone. Dragged them through a rough bath, then into the cave, and since then Stiles has been curling and coiling around them, caressing and petting their bodies like he wants to gently, inexorably soak every inch of them in his scent and touch.

And feeding them. Bits of meat, the best parts, coaxing them with kisses and rubs and those soft calls when they flagged. It’s—it’s odd. Werewolves will hole up for heat but food’s usually the last thing on their minds. Afterward, yes, they’ll gorge themselves but it’s the last frenzy of heat, a frantic, unthinking rush to fill bellies starved by overwhelming lust and nothing more. This…this prolonged, tender feeding, it’s…it’s…Peter doesn’t even know what to do, except to try and take whatever he’s offered. His stomach is starting to stretch to the point of pain but he can’t not open his mouth when Stiles asks for him to. Can’t even think of it.

He manages to get the latest mouthful down and Stiles rewards him with a long kiss. Peter whimpers into it, hefting over what feels like a sack instead of a body so he can twist to match the sphinx’s head. His belly protests a little and he digs his claws into the furs rather than break away from Stiles.

But Stiles pulls back. He puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder, holding Peter down when he tries to rise, and then leans across to sniff. His other hand slides down Peter’s belly, over the slight distended curve, and a pained groan slips out of Peter.

Immediately after Peter whines, trying to flatten himself. Stiles pauses, then makes a reassuring, shushing noise, bending over to lap and suck at Peter’s jaw. He carefully cleans off the blood and Peter slowly stops whining, instead trembling as every long press of Stiles’ tongue seems to burn his over-sensitized skin.

“No more food, I got it,” Stiles says. His voice is a little rough but it’s still amazingly coherent; Peter’s long since lost his words. He rubs Peter’s belly again, then starts to move away.

Peter instantly mewls, instinct telling him he _has_ to make amends, even though he has no idea what for. Stiles pauses again and Peter knows the sphinx is puzzled, can’t figure it out later. Knows it should be Peter’s responsibility to explain but he—he can’t even tell when he’s kneading the furs or Chris, only knows when Chris lets out a sleepy protest.

He arches his throat and Stiles looks at it. Cocks his head—birdlike, so much, sometimes, that the flip of his lion’s tail behind him is a minor shock—and then shrugs.

Stiles bends down and gently bites Peter on the side of the throat, where he should, where Peter wants it, then shifts to cradle Peter’s head and shoulders through the long, surprisingly hard shudder that results. He licks at the spot, then rubs his hand over it, fingers slipping up into Peter’s hair. Then he pulls himself around, tucks Peter into the curl of his body. He gives Peter’s head a few more strokes, then reaches off to the side. And as Peter finally drifts off, the last thing he hears is Stiles’ croon, and Chris’ exhausted grunting, muffled through a mouthful of meat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got cut out of the original story for a couple reasons: I couldn't make it work from Stiles' POV, it wasn't adding anything to the character arcs at that point, and it was dragging the dramatic resolution. And then I tried it from Peter's POV and it all clicked, but after almost 50,000 words in Stiles POV, it felt too weird to switch characters for a single scene.
> 
> Some bird species reaffirm their bonds post-courtship by feeding each other, so that's what Stiles' instincts are modeled on.


	7. Post-fic: Stiles Learns Why Snow Is Not All Bad

“Still not seeing the appeal here,” Stiles says.

Derek and Cora twist around with identical scowls. “Shh!” they hiss.

They’re shivering—well, _Stiles_ is shivering on the top of the den. The kids grimace into the chilly cross-breezes, but otherwise they don’t seem to notice the cold at all, even though they’re crouching on the snow in just over-large shirts. They actually burrow deeper into the stuff as Stiles watches, carefully and stealthily pushing the snow into a little pile in front of them.

Down below, there’s a series of muffled grunts and growls, and then a louder noise, a sleepy grunting call: one of the adult werewolves clearing their throats as they wake up. Stiles doesn’t have them all pegged yet, but he’s reasonably sure that this one is Peter, and he’s proven right when Peter’s mussed curls soon appear just past the edge of the den.

Peter stops there, absently running his hand through his hair. He has a fur wrapped around his shoulders, but he lets that sag as he lifts his head and sniffs at the wind. Then he goes stiff. He starts to spin around, but Derek and Cora have already heaved armfuls of snow down the back of his neck.

“Oh, I get it,” Stiles sighs as, howling, Peter leaps up the side of the den entrance, and the kids promptly take shelter behind Stiles. “Can’t kill each other in front of your pack leader.”

Wolf Peter pauses and touches his nose to Stiles’ cheek, lingering till Stiles gives him a chuck under the muzzle. Then he goes back to growling and mock-lunging at the kids, who are eerily quiet as they shuffle and skitter, always keeping Stiles between them and their uncle. Stiles frowns, wondering if he should get up. It’s…a little tense for a practical joke—Derek also keeps himself over Cora at all times—but then Peter irritably stalks back a few paces. He glowers over his shoulder, tail swishing angrily, and then he throws himself down by Stiles in a huff.

The kids stay flattened where they are for a couple minutes. They watch intently as Peter starts licking off the snow from his back, air decidedly wounded but calming, and then Derek pushes up. He digs underneath himself till he’s pulled out one of the furs _Stiles_ had insisted on bringing, if they were going to play around with powdered frozen water, and then he silently pushes it around Stiles’ front and over to Peter.

Peter looks at it, then takes it with a grudging snarl. But he just holds it in his mouth for a second. Then he drops it, right over Stiles’ chilled hands. Huffs again, lower and slower, snuggling up against Stiles’ side, head leaning against Stiles’ shoulder.

Derek leans over Stiles’ other shoulder for a second, looking at his uncle, and Cora peeks over _his_ shoulder. Then the kids scurry back up to the edge of the den roof. They gather up the snow into a fresh pile and then crouch down behind it. Inside the den, Stiles can hear another werewolf stirring. Maybe two, but then that second one rolls over and its breathing slows again. But the first one’s definitely awake, moving around a little. Then it pauses. Footsteps go up to the den entrance and Stiles hears a half-awake, inquiring snort, sees a hand stretch out to pick up the fur Peter had dropped.

Stiles looks at Peter, who is grinning like only a canine can grin, all lolling tongue and open jaws, and who is making no move to get up or grab the children, or anything like that. And Stiles rolls his eyes, because that is so Peter, but…Stiles doesn’t get up either. The kids had nailed _him_ first, anyway; it’s probably some weird werewolf bonding exercise. And if it’s not…

Derek and Cora shovel snow onto Chris, who yelps and crashes back into the den, and Stiles laughs his head off. Even if it’s not a werewolf thing, well, it _is_ funny. He figures it can’t hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie, I like asshole!Derek from the first season and a half better than the cookie-cutter broody tragic hero he seems to be turning into (am now on season three). And look, with Laura and Peter effectively raising the kids here because Talia was too busy with her failing marriage, obviously Derek and Cora are going to have some tendencies towards nasty senses of humor.
> 
> For anyone who's wondering, I am totally fudging ages. But Peter and Chris are intended to be early- and mid-twenties, respectively. Laura's late teens, Derek is early teens, and Cora is eight to ten-ish. Stiles is supposed to be around Peter's age, but he looks very young to the others.


	8. Post-fic Scene: Hot Springs Comparative Biology (and Sex) Lessons

Werewolf cocks look pretty much like human ones, except for the knot that pops up at the base. At least, it’s supposed to, but it’s difficult to get it to show up outside of heat and Chris is apparently too far removed from his to count.

He gives up trying with an annoyed look at Peter, which is admittedly not justified since it was really more Stiles who’d been pushing for it. Peter, however, seems perfectly happy to take the blame, and just smirks back at Chris before he slips off the rock and back into the hot spring.

The first reasonably nice stretch of weather they’d had, Stiles had asked if they could get out there. It’s been a week and a half since Scott left and at this point, after a _lot_ of reading and questions, Stiles is reasonably confident that the werewolves _can_ turn him down if they really want to. It’s just not their first impulse, and they’re used to alpha werewolves who don’t actually ask (or equally autocratic fathers with personal hunter gangs, in Chris’ case), and also, they’re still sort of twitchy every time he wanders off without at least one of them around. But they could.

But they don’t, because werewolves might be used to the lousy winter weather but that doesn’t mean they like it. Peter had said it’d take a day and a half to get there, and it did, but only because Stiles’ wing feathers still are a little short of flight and he has no walking stamina. If it’d been up to the werewolves, they probably would’ve gone over at a sprint, and gotten there within the day.

Anyway. So it’s a nice set-up, a small cave system with a spring tucked into one of the grottos. Stiles had roared a few times to chase out the existing wildlife and then they’d set up camp in a neighboring cave. Right after that, they’d all taken up living in the hot water.

They’d finally had to kick out the kids, who’d been looking very raisin-y even in wolf-form, and Laura had drawn the short straw for napping with them. Peter hadn’t even bothered looking smug about it, and had just flopped back into the water, like just now.

Unlike before, he’s only in for a few minutes before he swims back to where Stiles is sitting on a half-submerged rock with Chris, doing a little comparison. “So see, no spines,” Stiles says, taking himself in hand. He rolls half onto his side and lets the water float his leg up so they can see, then rolls back; the rock’s a little small for leonine form but his skin can’t take the heat for as long in two-legged form. “Wouldn’t you have noticed?”

Chris is sort of red from the steam anyway, but he goes a little redder. He still manages to be dryly incredulous. “No.”

“But was that a true heat for you?” Peter says. He’s seen plenty of Stiles’ cock but he gives it a long, distinctly hungry look anyway. “Or was it just a pseudo-heat, because you were triggered from Chris? What happens with other sphinxes?”

“It’s pretty much the same with other sphinxes. Well, except that if you’re actually trying for kids, you do a mating flight first,” Stiles says. He doesn’t actually have a lot of personal experience, though he’s watched and gossiped more than enough to know what he’s talking about (with sphinxes, public sex is common, and critical commentary by bystanders is an art form, thank you). “But that’s nothing fancy, it’s just a mock-chase. If you’ve heard about aerial displays, that’s if you’re competing for somebody, but that’s not actually part of mating. That’s just showing off beforehand.”

Peter looks thoughtful. “Then…you go into heat every time you want to have sex?”

“What? No, that’d be crazy, we’d never go anywhere if we were like _that_ all the time,” Stiles says, blinking. “I told you, we go into heat when our partner does—I guess that’s why we’re so popular with non-sphinxes—but we can have sex whenever. What…do werewolves only have sex during heat?”

Chris abruptly twists around and makes a weird, strangled, wheezing noise into his knee. He lets out a sharp cough at the end. Holds himself hunched over for a second, then starts to raise his head and sees Peter’s miffed face. He starts wheezing again, and then just drops off the rock to go laugh underwater.

“No, we have recreational sex too,” Peter finally says, in a very lofty, nonchalant tone. The look he’s giving the bubbles coming up from where Chris dove is a lot more mundane, in that it’s plain petty annoyance.

“Well, it’s not like I knew how it was specifically with you two, you could’ve just been helping him out,” Stiles says. When Peter looks up, he grins and then resettles himself into the vacated space on the rock. “So the throat thing.”

“It’s a claim,” Peter says immediately. He pauses, then puts his hands on the rock. Pauses again and then pulls himself up by Stiles, but lower, his feet still in the water and his head about level with Stiles’ chin. “It’s about trust, too, and…and affirmation. And…and it does feel good, if both sides want it. It’s like…during sex it’s like a promise without words.”

He looks up at Stiles. His lashes are clumped together, dotted with droplets, and distinctly coy as he gazes through them. Then he drops his gaze and points to a spot on his throat, right over the arteries.

“This would be a kill bite if the teeth went deep enough,” he says. “So any pressure there, that’s a signal to submit. Although that…that still can be enjoyable, in the right situation.”

Stiles snorts at Peter, because of course Peter would have to add that. But also because he’s covering up a little flash of chagrin, and trying to _not_ review all the times he’s put his mouth on their throats. Which has been a lot, frankly, over the past week and a half.

But he’d be able to smell the fear on them, and…and they still smell afraid sometimes, but not _of_ him. And certainly not now.

Not that Stiles needs a whiff, what with how Peter’s holding his throat out. Stiles snorts again. Starts to put out his arm, pauses as he hears Chris—but Chris is just leaning up against the rock, watching—and then he lifts his hand and wraps it around the side of Peter’s neck, right over that spot.

Peter’s lashes flutter, fanning off water. His head goes down, but he also bows his neck into the touch and arches his shoulders almost cat-like, dropping them back in a clear invitation. “Mmm,” he murmurs, lazy and close to purring. His hand moves to Stiles’ wrist and he shifts Stiles’ hand slightly, so that it’s centered instead on the neck tendons. “Here, it’s less dominance, more…more about commitment. Proof of that.”

“Not just a fling,” Stiles says, curling his fingers.

He runs his nails lightly along the tendon and Peter’s definitely purring now, working his cheek up Stiles’ arm till he’s rubbing it against Stiles’ shoulder. Water slops up against them as Chris moves more onto the rock, pushing up behind Peter and on the other side of Stiles’ arm. He shifts as if he means to go farther, then pulls back, keeping his head low.

“You’re sensitive about that,” he says, curious but tentative. “Getting behind you.”

“Getting behind and above,” Stiles says after a moment. Now Peter’s looking too, though his head’s still on Stiles’ shoulder.

Stiles considers them for a few seconds, then lets Peter go and slides off the rock. He slides his hand down Peter’s arm and his hip against Chris as he goes, reassuring the werewolves it’s not because he’s taking offense. He just needs more room, and to not accidentally slip and splat himself into the water.

After a quick shake, Stiles climbs out of the pool and sprawls out on the rock floor of the cave. The other two follow him, though they hang back as he runs his hands over his hindquarters, squeezing the remaining water out of his fur. “C’mere,” he says, waving at them.

Chris glances at Peter, then works his shoulders back and forth a few times. He looks like he’s going to shift—they totally take advantage of how he’s all distracted by the fuzzy warmth of their wolf forms—and then he just pushes his torso down. He eels over a few feet, so that he’s belly-down alongside Stiles with his head slightly above Stiles’ waist, and then, when Stiles motions him on, reluctantly crawls so that they’re more or less level.

Stiles flaps his hand dry, then reaches over. He puts his hand on the top of Chris’ head. Chris looks a little puzzled but otherwise he just lies down. When Stiles drags that hand down the back of his head, Chris arches, sucking in his breath just as Stiles reaches his nape, and then he relaxes as Stiles keeps going, moving his hand till it’s resting about mid-back on Chris. He’s confused but curious.

“This all, this is what you go for when you’re fighting in the air,” Stiles says.

Peter was already paying close attention, but at that his gaze sharpens even more. He pads over and settles himself at Chris’ other side, loosely curling his body near Chris’ head.

“I can still slap people with my wings if they get here—” Stiles runs his fingers up and down Chris’ spine, stopping when he gets to the first neck knobs “—but here, here, here, I can’t reach with those.”

He touches the top of Chris’ neck, right at the hairline, and then the back and top of Chris’ skull. Chris lets his head sink under the taps, light as they are, till he’s resting his cheek on the ground and looking up at Stiles. The werewolf’s listening, but he’s…he’s kind of really relaxed, considering what they’re talking about. And it’s not like he’s being offensive about it. It’s actually calming, in a weird way, looking at him stretched out and not even twitching a muscle as Stiles traces over his back.

“Hard to get at that for grooming, too,” Stiles adds after a few seconds. He finds himself drifting closer to Chris, whose pupils contract briefly in surprise, then slowly start to grow. Taking him in, and then—taking him _in_.

For all that Chris isn’t as showy as Peter, he does a pretty good line in coy, too. He makes a small, gravelly noise, just the beginnings of a purr, as Stiles leans over him. His fingers push repeatedly into the rock, trying uselessly to knead it, and then he slides his arms out from under him, goes completely flat on his belly. His ass pushes up, and he turns so his chin is on the ground, pushing his head up too, making his throat look longer.

Peter lets out an amused, slightly scoffing sound, but Chris ignores him, choosing instead to turn his head and flick a look up as Stiles climbs astride him. The look is warm with more than lust—it’s warmer than the steam floating around them. Then Chris closes his eyes, twists his head sideways and sighs contentedly as Stiles cups his hands over the werewolf’s shoulderblades.

“It can get really frustrating sometimes, if you’re on your own. I get a lot of kinks and knots here,” Stiles says. He rubs his thumbs around the edges of the blades, where the wings would come out on a sphinx. Then he snickers, because that’s drawn a low, pleasured grunt out of Chris. “Werewolves like that too, huh.”

“I think it’s just me,” Chris murmurs. Takes some real effort for him to do that, but he manages to slur it out before Peter can jump in. He rolls his shoulders into the petting, then moans softly as Stiles crouches over and licks into the hollow behind his ear, nibbling after the end of each tongue swipe. “That—that too.”

Stiles snorts into the hollow, making Chris shiver, and then scoots back. He’s still got one hand massaging around Chris’ left shoulderblade, but he brings the other one up to tickle at the side of Chris’ throat, which turns Chris into a living puddle for a second, just warm and slack. Then Chris groans, starting deep in his belly. His hips shift, then push more firmly up as he starts to try and get his knees under himself.

“Well, sphinxes like that too. I like it.” Stiles lets his weight push Chris back down, but then rocks into the werewolf, working his cock till it’s seated between Chris’ buttocks, tip pressing into the tops of the werewolf’s thighs. He’s…maybe getting interested.

They haven’t had sex since Chris’ heat, though there’s been a lot of petting and fondling, heavy enough that they’ve started moving down to the cave in the early mornings to avoid the children. Stiles wasn’t sure if that was something to do with the heat, or the fact that, however enthusiastic the werewolves are about returning any sign of affection, they’re both still far from peak health. Chris is apparently doing excellently for a newly-bitten werewolf, but he’s been taking extra turns on hunts (now that Stiles is contributing, Laura sometimes stays back to watch the kids and give Peter a break), and Peter’s just plain underweight.

And honestly, Peter probably pushes himself more than he should. He hates being left out and now’s no exception, as he edges up to them. He leans over Chris, grinning when Chris rouses enough for a weak warning growl, and then gives Stiles a soft, short kiss. Then he drops onto his belly. Looks entreatingly at Chris, who makes a face and then shrugs.

Peter promptly snuggles in. He slides his hands under Chris’ head, propping it up, and then he licks behind Chris’ ear. For all his outward confidence, he’s hesitant about that, barely flicking his tongue against the skin and then waiting to see the reaction from both of them. When Chris lets out a reluctant but clear purr, Peter grins again, but doesn’t lick again till Stiles reaches over and grips his neck.

Then he gives Chris another, longer nuzzle, but his attention isn’t actually there. He’s trying to twist his head around and Stiles can’t tell why; Stiles starts to take his hand off Peter and Peter immediately rises to keep in contact. He bumps into the underside of Stiles’ chin, then does it again, deliberately, making a soft inquiring noise at the same time.

Stiles cocks his head to watch the werewolf, and Peter presses into his chin, rubbing a cheek slowly over it. He works backwards along Stiles’ jaw, tilting his head so that his lips brush over Stiles’ skin, and then—oh. Crooning, Stiles obligingly turns his head and Peter nuzzles in behind his ear. Doesn’t nip, no hint of teeth, but he does mouth wetly at the skin till Stiles can feel his cock hardening between Chris’ buttocks, swelling them apart so Chris starts to make small, urgent noises, pawing at the ground and lifting his hips.

Then Chris snarls, protesting, as Stiles slides off him and onto Peter, knocking the other werewolf onto his back. Stiles feels a little guilty about it but Peter’s letting his head loll back, whimpering so the gorge of his throat bobs teasingly, like a leaf spinning in the breeze, and for all that that’s not a sphinx thing, the belly-up pose, Stiles is starting to get a taste for it.

He slithers over Peter, pressing down the werewolf’s arms when Peter starts to raise them. Peter subsides with a strangely grateful whine, then arches sharply as Stiles’ mouth closes around one of his nipples. Whether _that’s_ a werewolf thing or not, Stiles hasn’t gotten around to asking, but it’s certainly a Peter thing. He likes having attention there and Stiles doesn’t mind giving it to him, licking and sucking each nipple to a tight point. And then he keeps working at them, moving over as Chris joins him. 

He and Chris lave at the small, brown nipples till they go slightly pink. A little chafed, maybe, though Peter twists and mewls when Stiles lifts his head, begging for more. Stiles watches the skin heal over, then nips his way up to Peter’s throat, where he closes his mouth over one of the tendons and leisurely sucks his way along it.

Peter cries out, shuddering. He’s hard, head of his cock grazing precome all over Stiles’ belly. Getting into Stiles’ hindfur, making it sticky—Stiles swipes at the streaks with his hand, then grabs Peter’s thigh. He’s going to rub his fingers clean, and then he thinks the better of it and uses the grip to roll Peter onto his side, facing Chris, who promptly presses up and grabs Peter’s head, stopping whatever Peter had been about to say with his mouth.

The two of them look good together. All right, really damn good, and Stiles takes nearly a minute to slot himself behind Peter because he’s watching it, dark and blond heads pressing together, Chris’ leaner body humping against one of Peter’s tightly-muscled thighs. Then Stiles shakes his head. Pushes up to Peter’s back, working his cock between Peter’s legs and then holding it against the curve of the werewolf’s ass with one hand as he pumps himself against Peter.

Weirdly enough, werewolves have very little body hair. It’s like they save that all for their alternate forms. Anyway, Peter’s nearly smooth between his legs, and while they’re still damp from the hot spring, they’re not so wet that Stiles really has much in the way of lubrication for not chafing himself. Peter makes up for it—well, his body’s making up for it, Stiles is pretty sure that whatever Chris is doing has him too busy to think about it—by squeezing his thighs together, catching them urgently around the tip of Stiles’ cock.

Stiles comes with a huff at the back of Peter’s neck that makes Peter moan raggedly. He lets his softening cock ride Peter’s ass for a few of the werewolf’s humps, and then twists around so that he can lick the come off Peter’s buttocks and thighs.

Except Chris has already beaten him there. Stiles pauses, then shrugs and just crawls further, till he can bury his head between Chris’ legs. He takes a couple admittedly half-assed licks around Chris’ hole, because he’s distracted by trying to remember whether Chris had more hair as a human, and then he really pushes in and starts licking and sucking, just as Chris wrenches his knees open and groans like he’s being cut open alive.

Then Stiles pulls his head out. He takes his hands, which had been holding Chris’ balls and cock out of the way, and grabs each of the werewolf’s thighs and holds them apart. Lifts them a little, too, so Chris is flopping his upper body onto Peter’s legs, and pushes his face up to Chris’ hole to sniff. Then to taste.

Chris had been trying to crane around, a confused look on his face, but now he goes limp and he just mewls, rubbing his head frantically into Peter’s belly. Stiles feels his cock hardening again just from the sound of that, but…he ducks between Chris’ legs again. Licks deeply into the werewolf’s hole, doing his best to ignore how Chris immediately hitches back towards his mouth, and then sits back and ponders.

“He’s getting all slick again,” Stiles finally says. It’s not nearly as much as when Chris was in heat, just enough of a trace to taste, and to leave a little sticky shine around Chris’ hole, but it’s there. “I thought you only had it once a year?”

“Heat?” Peter still looks a little dazed himself, but he’s certainly more together than Chris, who is just flat-out shuddering now, face pressed hard into Peter’s thigh. “We do, we—oh. Oh. No, that, the slick—sometimes you can get it to come outside of heat. If you—if you’re enjoying it enough.”

So obviously, Stiles has to see this for himself. He pushes out from between Chris’ legs, then grabs the man with one arm and pulls them flush together, so Chris won’t protest too much. And then he hauls them up between Peter’s legs. Wraps his hand around Chris’ cock, keeping Chris from getting in the way, and pushes his other hand behind Peter’s balls.

Peter’s cock is still soft, and from the way he’s panting he’s probably done for a while, but he still doesn’t hesitate to spread for Stiles. His head goes back flat on the cave floor and he starts to shiver as Stiles slides a finger up his perineum, rubbing around in the sweat and come. “I don’t—I don’t know if—” he moans, and then he breaks off into a ragged whine as Stiles circles his hole, dips just a fingertip into it. “I might be—too—”

“There’s a little,” Stiles says. He grins, ducking down to nip and suck at the nape Chris is pushing at him, and then pulls his hand out. Shows Peter his fingertip, then wipes it all over Peter’s belly as he turns back to Chris.

Chris is almost kittenish, all yearning shivers and small aching noises, rubbing his head back into Stiles’ shoulder. It’s like he’s so desperate he’s broken all his growls and snarls, and that’s what he has left. And it’s amazing, and the way he _arches_ when Stiles uses his own slick to work a finger into him, just how he throws his whole body into it, that just—Stiles has no words.

Stiles shifts them onto their sides, curling up around the werewolf, crooning reassurances and trying to remember to bite at the side of Chris’ neck as well as the back, easing Chris’ frenzy as best he can. There’s not enough slick for more than that finger, and outside of heat he needs to stretch them or else they’ll tear up inside. He won’t be able to get his cock in, but he pushes that up till he’s rubbing the head of it into the back of Chris’ balls, smearing his precome around so Chris can smell it. Seems to work—Chris stops trying to sit on his cock anyway, and just slumps into Stiles, riding his finger till the werewolf comes with a sharp, stuttering moan.

While Chris is trembling from the comedown, Stiles takes the werewolf’s nape loosely between his fangs and thrusts his cock across Chris’ inner thigh, pressing it into the muscle with his hand. Twice and he’s come, too, and then he settles back to catch his breath. Licks at the couple drops of blood he’s left on Chris’ neck.

He starts a little when he feels a hand on his flank, but it’s just Peter, trying to figure out how to snuggle in. Stiles eases his finger out of Chris and steadies Chris’ hips with both hands, then shifts his hindquarters over to make room.

Peter starts to slide up and his hand catches on a spot that makes Stiles stifle a purr into Chris’ back. So Peter stops where he is, blinking hard. He looks at the spot, low on Stiles’ spine where the muscles for his tail attach to his back, and then he pushes down on it again. Stiles purrs and bats at Peter at the same time, but Peter ducks and then settles down with his head on Chris’ hip, tangling into Stiles’ and Chris’ legs. And keeps scratching the spot.

“Just like a cat,” Peter observes, grinning madly.

“Oh, wow, like I haven’t heard that one before,” Stiles mutters around his purring. He gives up on trying to get the werewolf to stop being smug, because Chris is moving restlessly and Stiles still feels a little guilty for sort of ditching him earlier. And fine, because the skritches do feel good.

“You do that when somebody preens you, too,” Chris says. His eyes are closed and his body goes slack as soon as Stiles pulls him over, and generally he just looks like he shouldn’t be capable of talking, let alone a faint teasing tone. “Your wings. Is that a thing?”

Stiles thinks about lying, because the pair of them are already way too good at sussing out his soft spots. And then he sighs, and just kisses the back of Chris’ neck. “Well, in that it feels really, really good, yeah. But if you’re asking if it’s a sex thing, um, no. That would make preening really awkward. I mean, that’s what we do when we greet _everybody_.”

“Oh.” A ghost of a frown crosses over Chris’ face, then smooths away. “Oh. So that’s what that was about.”

“Hmm?” Stiles says.

Chris goes a little pink. He burrows his head into his arm, then grunts in resignation, even though Stiles is just staring at him, nothing else. “You—when Scott was here, he was—you two were playing, I guess, and then he jumped on you and started—preening—and—”

“Oh,” Stiles says. Then he laughs and shakes his head. “ _Oh_. Oh, uh, no, me and Scott, no. Although man, everybody seems to think we do. I have no idea why, you know.”

He runs his fingers through Chris’ hair as he talks, then finishes up with another kiss to Chris’ nape. Chris doesn’t actually say he’s relieved, but he purrs under the touches. And Peter certainly makes no attempt to hide how happy he is to hear that, switching over to nuzzle at Stiles’ hip as he digs his nails. Right into the base of Stiles’ tail, right _there_.

“’s different too, you know,” Stiles mumbles. He’s trying to not just purr his brains away. Trying, and mostly failing. “Purring. Your purr, ‘s more grumbly. ‘s nice, though, and you can do it when you’re two-legged.”

“You can’t?” Peter asks. He does slow up on the skritching but he doesn’t actually stop. “You almost never go human, actually.”

Stiles shrugs. “I can still purr, it just sounds really weird when I’m two-legged. It’s way too high and kind of squeaky. Yours doesn’t change across forms. And—yeah, well, it’s not that I hate humans, obviously, but I’m a sphinx. I’m not sure why we can shift to human bodies—”

Peter and Chris both stir a little.

“Um. You’re born humans?” Stiles says after a second.

“No, born werewolves are born werewolves. But…we start with human bodies, then learn to shift,” Peter says slowly. He’s interested enough to stop scratching at Stiles’ tail.

For a moment Stiles misses it, and then he decides having his ability to think rationally again is worth it, if only because he notices how sore he’s getting just lying on stone. He grabs Chris and heaves them over the couple feet they need to reach the nearest pile of furs, and then reaches over to pull in Peter as the werewolf follows them.

“We’re born sphinxes,” Stiles says, tucking Peter up against his chest. “We shift to leonine form, and then to human. So I guess we’re actually were-human?”

Peter hums thoughtfully, but even he’s too tired to explore further. He drapes himself over Chris and pillows his head on Stiles’ breastbone, that hum slowly going to a sleepy purr.

“You don’t mind me being like this, or with wings, all the time, do you?” Stiles asks.

Both werewolves look up at that, but they don’t say anything. Instead Chris shifts down so that he’s pressing into the curve made by Stiles’ outstretched hindlegs and belly. He rubs his cheek into the fuzzy hairline that starts just under Stiles’ bellybutton, purring softly, while Peter nuzzles up under Stiles’ jaw. Stiles snorts, then smiles. Shifts out a wing, and Peter hefts himself up just long enough to nuzzle at the underside. Then he drops back, curling up and whuffing pleasantly close to slumber against Stiles’ chest.

“Good,” Stiles says quietly, and then he wraps the wing over them and puts his head down, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was because, even though a sharp reader should be able to put together that Chris' heat got triggered by seeing Scott and Stiles rolling around together, I wanted to explore that a little more. And I think given how Stiles is, he was totally going to get into all the nitty gritty details of interspecies sex the moment he had a chance. No better way to explain anatomy than with a hands-on demonstration, right?
> 
> I do love a good wing kink fic, but for a lot of birds, preening each other is really more of an all-purpose social greeting, not a sexual one. And anyone who's actually seen birds having sex (especially ones that do it on the ground, like mallard ducks) will tell you that the wings make it hilarious, what with the frantic flapping pushing them around like little bumper cars and all. Not really what I was going for.
> 
> Also, I restrained my usually inappropriate sense of humor and did not have any cat jokes in the main story. They all ended up in the extras.
> 
> ...self-lubing, pre-shaved werewolves are just for fun. Stiles had a rough time in the main story, post-fic I just felt like giving him all the nice things.


	9. Post-fic: Megafauna Hunt!

“It _looks_ like a rhino,” Scott says doubtfully, peering down at the small herd in the ravine. “But they’re really…furry.”

“Woolly,” Chris corrects absently. “They don’t often range this far west. Must be really bad weather if they’ve come off the plateaus.”

Cora’s back at the den with Laura, but Derek’s come along for what was supposed to be a straightforward moose hunt, now that Scott’s back and Stiles can fly, and Peter is supervising. At least, he would be if he wasn’t busy looking absolutely fascinated by the woolly rhinos. “They’ve got the head all wrong,” he murmurs, his mind obviously in one of his books. “How on earth do you get a horse’s head from that…legs like tree trunks, though, that I can see.”

Chris reaches out and snags Derek’s arm as the boy gets a little too close to the edge of the ravine. Derek grumbles and shakes him off, but stays put; the kids have slowly been getting comfortable around Chris, who’s alternately wistful and stiff around them.

“That one is limping,” Derek says, pointing to a straggler at the end of the herd. He creeps up next to Peter and looks at it, clearly trying to not sound as awed as he is. Even though the fact that he’s talking in full sentences kind of gives it away. “It’s huge. It’d feed everybody for a week, wouldn’t it? And I bet that fur’s warm.”

Peter glances over, then snorts under his breath as he moves back and allows Derek a better view. He’s more amused than annoyed, but then, finding out new things always tends to put him in a good mood. “If we can pick it off,” he says, watching two of the other rhinos backtrack to guard the injured one. “They seem a little more protective of each other than the elk are.”

Derek makes a face but he’s listening attentively. For all his watchful scowling, he pays more attention to his uncle than to Laura, and Stiles thinks there’s more than a little imitation going on how Derek attempts to look like he already knew that.

Both the kids trail around Peter a lot, actually, for all that Peter makes it very clear he dislikes having to adjust for them. Maybe because he would rather treat them like adults; Laura does get a little smothery when she’s worried and Derek probably could have come out hunting before this. The boy’s a little flaky, especially if the prey is unpredictable, but he’s got quick reflexes and can bag a rabbit or pheasant as neatly as either of his elders.

“Are we actually going after that?” Chris says, bringing Stiles’ attention back to the rhino.

Speaking of. Chris has plenty of experience and intelligence and courage, but as far as actual attacks go, he’s still pretty raw, overshooting leaps and underestimating his strength. And Peter’s not going _anywhere_ near live prey, not till he’s healthy (even if he looks more than a little longing, watching the others kill something). So that leaves Stiles and Scott for first-line attackers.

“Stiles,” Scott says, half-nervous, half-warning. “It’s a little big, even for both of us.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Stiles squats at the ravine’s edge and considers the herd. Three sphinxes and they’d be good. Two is a little tricky, especially in such tight maneuvering quarters. The herd’s out in the open for now, but they only have to step a few yards to either side and they’ll be in thick forest, where the trees are too close together for real flying. “Well, we could just go for all of them.”

Now Scott looks pale. “ _Stiles_.”

“What? There’s that cliff nearby, I think it’d work,” Stiles says. “Come on. It works for elephants all the time at home.”

“You mean chase them off the cliff?” Chris says. He looks like he’s going to approve, and then he has second thoughts. “Can we _eat_ that much before it spoils? I don’t think we can smoke and salt all of it, it’d just be so much.”

“We would attract scavengers,” Peter reluctantly seconds. “Not just birds and coyotes, Stiles. It’s the dead of winter, we’d get omegas from all around, and they’d want to stand and fight if we challenged them.”

Stiles makes a face, but…yeah. He’s not big on fighting more werewolves right now, even non-alpha ones, and Scott is not big on fights, period.

“All right, never mind. Let’s go find that moose,” he mutters. But he gives those rhinos another glance before moving off, willing them to stay put. One more day and he’s _positive_ he can figure out a way to get one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So some of the animals mentioned in the main story aren't mythical, they're just extinct megafauna. I like to think of flocks of sphinx swooping down on elephants and giant ground sloths and giant camels, sort of like the old myth about the roc bird. And Stiles gets Scott into trouble in any form, obviously.
> 
> Peter is referencing some very early descriptions of unicorns, which are arguably based on a distorted idea of an Indian rhino passed from traveler to traveler, till it hit Classical Greek and Roman writers who'd never seen one.
> 
> Prehistoric man (and some societies right up into civilized times) did, in fact, drive herds off cliffs as a hunting method.


	10. Post-fic: Alpha Pack Showdown

The youngling leads them right into a rock outcropping, skidding a little as he swerves to avoid cracking his own skull against the steep face. Laughing, Kali pulls up at a much more leisurely pace. She shakes herself onto two legs, then shrugs as a much more put-out Ennis snarls angrily. Both of them watch the young wolf—Talia’s son?—show unexpected agility and climb the boulder.

But he only manages to get up halfway, and then it’s too steep for him. Derek doesn’t even try, just coils sharply about on the tiny ledge to face them. His teeth are still bared but his hackles are smoothing, as if any one of them would even have to stretch to swat him back down.

“And where’s the new alpha?” Kali calls.

Deucalion’s been slowed up by the rough terrain and he’s only just arrived. His head jerks sharply over and those uncanny, milky eyes of his stare at her. They’re unfocused as always, but he’s clearly displeased with her.

“It’s just—” Kali starts, and then a flicker of moment catches her eye.

There’s a youth lying on top of the rock. He’d been hidden by an outgrowth of lichen at first, but now he lifts his head and shoulders over it. He’s a slight thing, pretty cream skin and dark eyes, and he’s wrinkling his face at them as if they’re nothing more than an overly loud band of birds disturbing him.

Ennis huffs and lashes his tail in pleasurable anticipation, only to start when Deucalion lets a subvocal growl leak at him. Kali frowns, glancing from the youth to her fellow alphas. The youth looks barely older than Derek Hale. Sure, he smells strange, but—

He grins at her, then closes his eyes. Pushes his hands deep into the mosses, arches his back upwards, and yawns wide. His fangs are a good inch longer than any alpha werewolf’s, and he has strange, furred legs. Then a tail flicks up and it’s long and thin, ending in a furred tuft the same reddish-brown as his hair. He rocks forward on his hands and bows his back upwards, like a cat, and then he sits down and he _does_ have a cat’s hindquarters. His claws are longer than theirs, too.

“Are we speaking with the Hale pack?” Deucalion calls up. He’s unusually restrained, and he’s brought both hands forward to show their lack of claws.

Deucalion’s the most knowledgeable and well-traveled of them by far, aside from his personal power, and normally Kali would defer to him. But this youth—fine, he has the teeth and claws, but he’s still underweight by comparison.

Derek Hale snarls at them, and then jumps and shifts to human mid-jump. He throws up an arm, and his older sister Laura appears, next to the strange youth. She grabs his hand and swings him up to the top, then forces him to reluctantly shuffle behind her. Her eyes are a faded red—not up to full strength. And her uncle, whose furred head slinks up on the youth’s other side, Kali dismisses out of hand. Peter Hale’s underhanded tricks have lured more than one overconfident fool to their downfall, but he’s never been known for taking a head-on challenge.

“I guess,” the youth says. He has a slight accent that Kali can’t place.

“We could,” Ennis mutters. “He’s too young, we could—”

The youth grins at them again, then…stands, Kali supposes. His body changes shape slightly, so he can balance on his hands and his feet and still hold his head up without looking like it strains him. He casually rolls his shoulders and, with a sharp _snap_ that makes even Kali hiss, a pair of giant dark things shoot out from just behind them.

He has _wings_. Kali has seen winged shifters before, but never anything of this size. The wings are immense, spreading well over the Hales and then beyond, and the sweeping shadow they throw over the alpha pack stirs some ancient memory of death from above, makes everyone from Deucalion on down cringe a little.

A fierce flare of rage immediately goes through Kali. She makes herself straighten up and meet that youth’s eyes. “Still outweigh him,” she says under her breath. “If we got him on the ground—”

The wings flick again, and the sunlight’s suddenly painfully bright on them. The youth’s clearly heard her and he laughs, shaking his wings so the now-metal feathers rattle thunderously. “I _guess_ ,” he says mockingly, looking right back at her.

Kali’s about to respond when an unnatural gust of wind whips branches across their feet and blows one twin into the other. They twirl and brace into it, and look up just in time to see another half-cat, winged youth come to perch easily in a tree off to the side. And then the wind howls from the other direction, and two more land in the pines, while a blonde girl takes up position just behind them, completing the circle. None of them are very heavily-built, compared to werewolves, but they’re swift, stealthy, and they all have those long fangs and claws. And when they rattle their feathers together, it’s so deafening that Kali can’t help a pained whine, even with her hands clamped over her ears.

Deucalion doesn’t need to, being blind and all, but he brushes the dirt from his eyes and then carefully, using very slow, telegraphed movements, steps forward again. He looks up at the first youth.

“Alpha pack,” he says, gesturing to their group. He smiles with his lips firmly shut, his stance neutral. “We seek right of passage, er, Alpha…”

“Just call me Stiles,” says the youth. The light ripples across his wings and they’re plain feathers again. He folds them close behind him and sits down, arms straight down between his pulled-up knees, and considers them. Then looks back at his…well, the Hales and his…his packmate equivalents? What _is_ he?

Stiles frowns, searching for someone. Then he turns around and smiles affectionately as a rare sandy-colored wolf approaches, followed closely by Talia’s younger daughter.

“Hey, you were just going to miss it,” he says. “So they’re saying they just want permission to go through.”

“We’re on our way south,” Deucalion hastily adds. “Shouldn’t be in your range for more than a few hours.”

The sandy-colored wolf—who is completely unknown to any of the alpha pack, judging by everyone’s blank glances—snorts in a distinctly disbelieving way. It leads Cora Hale up to her siblings and then cuts behind Stiles, taking up a place with Peter, who’s shifted human and is outright rolling his eyes.

“I suppose if they’re at a dead run the whole time,” Peter scoffs.

“We’re reclaiming some of the borderlands, now that Mom’s dead,” Laura says to Deucalion, with a toothy, unashamedly aggressive smile. “Growing pack, need more game.”

“Noted,” Deucalion says tightly. He’s got that tic in his cheek that means as soon as they get out of here, he’s going to have it out with all of them for the massive failure in scouting.

Although the last _anyone_ had heard, just the last autumn, Kali thinks murderously, Talia Hale had been competing with a hunter family to see who could kill off her family the fastest. “What is he?” she hisses.

“Sphinx,” Deucalion snaps at her. He doesn’t take his eyes off Stiles, and when one of the other sphinxes idly riffles still-metal feathers, Deucalion sucks in his breath. His eyes widen in an unmistakably fearful way.

Kali catches Ennis staring at their leader, too, and she jerks her chin at him, signaling to back off. He sees the sense of it and lowers his eyes before Deucalion senses anything. Deucalion leads because he’s the strongest, the most clearheaded, the most unafraid. If that’s changed…

…well, later. For now, much as it gnaws at Kali, she assumes a deferential posture to the sphinx on the rock above her.

“May we go?” Deucalion asks Stiles.

Peter tenses and leans towards Stiles, but he withholds whatever objection he’d like to make and just shares a glance with Laura. Stiles reaches out without looking away from Deucalion, putting his hand on Peter’s neck in a relaxed but clear claim, and Peter willingly turns his head into it, nuzzling Stiles’ shoulder with what looks like genuine fondness. For a moment Kali questions her eyes about whether that really is Peter Hale up there.

“You can get moving,” Stiles says. Then he straightens up, just as Deucalion’s shoulders are dropping in relief. “I’m still thinking about it, honestly. Not sure I want to drop you on our neighbors, however terrible they’ve been. But you might as well get going while I make up my mind, because either way, we don’t want you here.”

He flashes his fangs at them again, and that’s enough. Kali doesn’t even wait for any of the others. She just takes off through the woods as fast as she can, the crash of metal feathers dogging her frantic steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...well, yeah, it went a little differently here. Deucalion is not completely stupid and he's seen what a flock of sphinxes leave behind. Which is nothing but a bloody smear. If people are interested in the inspiration--tigers actually will kill and drive out wolf packs, and have been shown to reduce wolf populations in their territories. Lions have a bit more difficulty against hyenas, but easily dominate the African wild dog. Add an aerial advantage and metal feather missiles, and it's not even a contest.
> 
> The other sphinxes are supposed to be Scott, Jackson, Danny and Erica (Lydia was off elsewhere, because she does not do silly little pissing contests). Boyd does exist but he's just not built plausibly for a flying creature, and I haven't made up my mind what he would be instead (but he's some sort of were). Anyway. So Erica was the sphinx Stiles mentioned he sort of courted. They had a quick fling, then realized that they're better off as terrible friends, in that they'd be (gleefully) terrible to everybody around them.


	11. Post-fic: Egg Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flock-pack adopts an egg, because Scott. And Stiles and the werewolves work out a few things about interspecies reproduction.

Stiles huffs his way out of the furs, shrugging off somebody’s limb as he makes his way towards a flutter of cooler, fresher air. Well, honestly, chilly and stinging air—spring takes forever to show up around here, and he’d much rather just stay stuffed in bed with his mates, even if that means he suffocates to death. At least he’d be able to feel his fingertips.

But he needs to empty his bladder, and the convenient part of cliff-dwelling also is the part where you have to crawl out of your nice, toasty, comfortable pile of bodies and go outside and huddle on a rock ledge in a blistering wind. So, grumbling under his breath, Stiles shakes off the last fur and takes the cold air straight in the face.

Warm breath snuffles over his hand and Stiles looks down, but the sleepily blinking eyes he sees are on the wrong side. Then he feels a lump push up against his left hindleg—still buried in the bedding—and suck up the newly-freed furs. That’d be Chris, then.

Peter blinks again, shoulders instinctively pulling in so they’re back under the furs. He’s still too drowsy for speech but he makes a low, inquiring noise. Stiles swallows his grumble and croons reassuringly back at him, and, when Peter starts to move around anyway, bends down to lap at the back of Peter’s neck. He sniffs, too, so Peter puts his head back down. Then he gives the side of Peter’s throat a light nip for good measure.

Purring and arching languidly, Peter pushes his neck and then his shoulder up against Stiles’ mouth. Then he rubs down against the furs, all softly-closing eyes and tousled hair and pale, silken-looking skin against the dark hides, and Stiles feels another kind of need stir in his groin. And then the first one again, and damn it, he hates getting up in the morning.

Stiles gives Peter a last lick, then reluctantly stalks over to the cave entrance. He pushes the screen aside and grimaces as the wind slaps about his head, then goes outside and does his business.

It’s at least a sunny day. Early spring around here means constant drizzling, freezing rain, so Stiles is glad to see that the sky is clear of any clouds. The wind blasts at him again, so he has to dance aside to keep the last drops of urine from swinging back towards the cave, and Stiles snarls at it and then just gives and jumps off the ledge for a quick whirl.

When he’s in the air, it just _seems_ warmer. His muscles are all working, his wings keep him soaring too fast for the cold to keep up with. Which all right, is not how it works, but it feels like it and that’s good enough for him.

He catches a good updraft and rides it high over the forest, till he can just glimpse the distant mountains, and then he wheels in place for a few minutes. The sky’s clear _through_ the mountains, which is a good sign: weather here changes in the blink of an eye, but if nothing’s building up around the peaks, they stand a good chance of having decent weather for the whole day. The other sphinxes have been bitching about having to go around on the ground all week, so they can all stretch out. And maybe they can even do some work.

Stiles dips his wing and circles back over the cliff, slowly descending over the spot where the Hales are building a new house. It’s not much at the moment, just a bunch of stone walls and earthworks erected around the original den, but they’re getting to the point where they should start scouting out timbers for the upper frame.

Well, if they ever sort out the building plans. The werewolves are used to having everybody together, and not just because alphas make them, apparently. They just _feel_ better if everybody’s in the same place. Which sphinxes do too, but sphinxes and werewolves have different definitions of ‘same place.’

As Stiles pulls back up to drop over the cliffside onto his ledge, he glimpses the cliff where the other sphinxes have nested for the time being (seeing as his cave’s the only opening big and high enough here, and he’s not sharing werewolf cuddles). It’s only a couple miles away, barely anything for a flyer, but that’s far enough to make the werewolves antsy.

They’ll work on it later, he decides. The flight’s been good for working out his stiff limbs but his head’s still firmly in bed. 

He lands back on his ledge, pauses to flick his wings to shake off any dust and insects, and then pads back inside. Chris has pushed his head out of the furs, though he’s still got his face half-shoved into them. He’s the closest to a morning person of all of them, but two days ago, in a driving rainstorm, he’d gotten bucked off an aurochs and thrown through a tree and he’s probably still sore. Supernatural healing can only do so much.

“He back yet?” Chris mutters.

“Huh? Oh, didn’t check, actually.” Stiles shifts away his wings as he reaches the edge of the bed. His left hip itches and he runs his claws over the spot, then tosses away a bit of matted fur.

He’s debating about going back out, but just then he smells oil. That and the faintest whiff of werewolf slick, which sends a reminder swell of heat into the bottom of his belly. Stiles sniffs again, searching out the source, and then grins as he pushes the furs off Peter’s head. He’d thought the werewolf was sleeping again, but just then Peter groans. The furs rise over the vague hump of his ass, slide off his bare shoulders and back as he slowly pushes up on his forearm. His other arm’s bent under the furs, though it comes out to brace himself as Stiles rumples the bedding off the rest of him. Oil from the jar they’ve taken to keeping bedside is gleaming on his fingers.

Peter sprawls out on his belly, legs spreading as Stiles prowls around him and up along his side. He turns his head, watching Stiles with half-shut, lazily inviting eyes, then drops it as Stiles stoops and sniffs at the plumpest part of his buttock. A low, throaty mew, almost a kitten noise, comes from him. He spreads his legs a little more, cheek pressed firmly to the furs.

Stiles laps at a dribble of oil coming out of his buttock cleft and trailing onto his back, making Peter shiver. Then he swings a leg over the werewolf and lies down on top of Peter, hardening cock sliding up between Peter’s thighs. He licks a long, unbroken stripe from the middle of Peter’s back to the top of the neck, right to the hairline, and then presses his tongue down flat, twisting his head almost to lie on the furs. Grips Peter’s hip with one hand, takes his cock with the other and then pushes it up against Peter’s hole.

“Please,” Peter murmurs, wanting, just the edge of urgency in his voice. He rolls back onto Stiles, taking in just an inch, and then flattens out, shivering a little. His hands slide out in front of him, kneading mindlessly at the hides, and his nape pushes back into Stiles’ mouth. “Please, mmm, you feel so—”

Purring, Stiles turns his head and bites down on the side of Peter’s neck, just as he jerks his hips up, going flush into the werewolf. Peter stretched himself out plenty and he’s still relaxed from waking too, it’s an easy slide in, but he still lets out a shaking cry as their bodies press together. 

Stiles grabs his hips with both hands, stopping his shudder, and then moves to grip Peter’s ribs. Then twists them over onto their sides, so he can get his arms around Peter. He runs his palm flat across Peter’s belly as the werewolf arches against him, whining, then angles it down to just wrap around Peter’s hard cock. His other hand he brings up to tease a nipple, lightly rubbing it in time to his sucks and nibbles at Peter’s throat.

Peter moans and shivers on his cock, ass squeezing up and down it. Gropes with one hand, the other fisted tightly in the furs, till he can grasp at Stiles’ hip. He’s figured out that the skin there is tough enough to take some raking and he scratches lightly through Stiles’ hindfur with his claws, drawing long, sparking stripes that shoot heat towards where their bodies are joined. Till Stiles nips him on the throat. Just a playful warning, but Peter likes that sort of thing with him, likes a little light discipline.

Whimpering, head bowing in submission, Peter pulls his hand away. He scrabbles blindly in front of himself, seeking a handhold he can’t quite get as Stiles fucks slowly into him, then settles for grasping his own cock, oiled hand slipping as he wraps it over Stiles’ fingers. He purrs happily as Stiles gives him a soothing lick on the nipped spot, tangling their fingers together and then dragging them up and down his erection.

Outside of heat Stiles can actually enjoy the build-up, the slow way their bodies warm and tighten up as climax approaches. He rolls Peter halfway back onto his belly, pressing up tight, making every stroke go balls-deep, purring over Peter’s purrs. Nurses the back of Peter’s neck with his mouth, counting spinal bumps with his tongue, till Peter starts to pant, to whimper a little more sharply. Peter tugs on their hands, working them more roughly over his cock, and Stiles rumbles and digs his fingers obligingly into Peter’s hip, pinning him for the last couple thrusts.

They come almost together. Stiles is maybe a fraction earlier, but Peter makes up the difference with a shudder so prolonged that Stiles ends up rubbing along the insides of his thighs, trying to ground him. Once he catches his breath, Peter cranes his head around, nuzzling at Stiles’ jaw, both reassuring and angling for a kiss.

Werewolves do that more than sphinxes. So do were-cats, actually, so maybe it’s just a groundbound thing. Anyway, Stiles is kind of getting fond of it, whatever the cause. He stretches over and he and Peter lip at each other for a few seconds, more fervently than the awkward angle really should allow for. Then he pulls out of Peter and turns the werewolf over for a full mouth-on kiss.

Peter groans into Stiles’ mouth, belly trembling under Stiles’ hands. He really likes it when they lie like this, stomach to stomach, him underneath. Preferably with Stiles’ cock inside him; he tries to push his hips down and get that back, but Stiles grabs his hands and pins them, sticking with the kiss. They need to get out of bed at some point.

Speaking of. Stiles gives Peter’s lip a last gentle suck, then lifts his head and immediately meets Chris’ eyes. The other werewolf’s thrown off the furs and is also on his back, one leg bent up to make a background for the rosy erection he’s slowly working, watching them. He’s got oil on his fingers, and more shining back over his thigh, like maybe he was fingering his hole, too, but when Stiles pushes off Peter, Chris doesn’t turn over. Just hikes up both knees, grabbing at his shin with one hand to hold it out of the way.

“Still hurts?” Stiles has to say.

“It’s better.” Chris is a lot more patient than Peter, and just looks tolerant as Peter makes little protesting noises about being nudged up to lie shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Then he puts his head back with a long, begging whine. “Still—spine still—feels like a bunch of rocks—”

He stops talking as Stiles pushes deep between his legs, lapping up that oil. Gasping and groaning, Chris grabs at the furs with both hands, then shoves them under his ass, tilting that up as Stiles’ tongue starts to lave at his hole. Another hand bumps into Stiles’ head and he looks up, sees that Peter’s made the best of it and rolled half-onto his side to make out with Chris and stroke Chris’ cock.

Stiles rewards Peter with a few long, deep licks at Peter’s hole, lapping out the come from it, and then switches back to Chris just as Peter’s hips hitch down. Peter grunts but Chris has him too busy to really be disappointed. And Chris is getting a lot more insistent now, as much slick as oil coming out onto Stiles’ tongue. He can wait for ages and look like he doesn’t mind, but the moment he gets his turn, all that goes away.

He starts riding down on Stiles’ mouth, whining loudly enough to be heard through Peter’s kisses. Stiles slips in a finger along with his tongue, then grabs Chris’ thigh as the werewolf bucks violently. He lifts his head and Chris catches his eye, twists to bare throat, whimpering into Peter’s mouth. Stiles makes a calming noise and works up Chris’ body, keeping his finger still, and then, as he reaches Chris’ neck, he pushes it forward and deep into the spot that makes Chris scream.

At the same time he bites shallowly at the side of Chris’ throat. Chris’ cry thins out into a ragged keen, cock smearing streak after streak of come against Stiles’ belly. He jerks free of Peter’s mouth, then hikes his chin up, rubbing his throat into Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles sucks the spot a little, then kisses it. Then bends over and lets Chris kiss him on the mouth, deep and still trembling some. Chris likes kisses too, but then he’d been a human most of his life, so that makes sense.

Peter nuzzles up against Stiles’ shoulder and Stiles gives him an absent drag of fingers through the hair, then looks over. But Peter’s already slid down to waist-height. He glances up, pauses, and then tentatively licks at Stiles’ stomach. When Stiles croons approvingly, Peter pushes in and carefully cleans him and Chris up. Then crawls back up to tuck his head against Stiles’ neck as Stiles sprawls comfortably over Chris, who skritches gently at the base of Stiles’ tail.

“Good weather today,” Stiles eventually says. “I think we’re all going to fly out.”

Chris and Peter both still. “To look for him?” Chris says.

“Oh, Scott? Nah, it’s still kind of early, with the storm a couple days ago. If he knew what was good for him, he just holed up and waited that out.” Stiles bends over and flicks his tongue along Chris’ jaw, runs his hand down Peter’s back and along his flank. “But I probably will start asking around. It has been a little long.”

Werewolves also have a little bit of trouble understanding how sphinxes can be so laid back about delays in seeing each other, although Chris and Peter have no trouble understanding things like wind currents. So Chris doesn’t look that comforted, although he’s trying to not openly worry. Peter, on the other hand, just changes the subject.

“It’s still early in the year, will you be able to find the right ones to ask?” he says. “Usually we don’t get the migratory birds for another month.”

“They may not be all the way up here, but they’re already traveling in the same direction. I can get the birds here to pass the word down that we’re looking along that current. I mean, it’ll take longer, obviously, since it’s got to go down and then come back up.” Stiles has to grin a little bit at how fascinated Peter looks. He loves learning new things himself, but Peter just adores it, gets all distracted so sometimes he even forgets he was the one trying to cause the distraction. “Also, since the non-migratory ones tend to be the dumber ones. You usually have to ask a couple times.”

Peter hums thoughtfully. Then leans his cheek against Stiles’ shoulder as Stiles pets his back again. “Well, no need to hunt today. Laura did want to work some more on the house, but we don’t need you for this part,” he says. A flicker of wistfulness, cut through with hesitation, goes over his face. “Are you going to be out the entire day?”

“No.” Stiles snuggles into the two of them for a few more seconds, then reluctantly pulls himself up. They’re starting to get sticky, and now they’re going to have to wash the furs, too. Usually they at least try to stay on one, so they can just toss it off to the side afterward, but they’ve rolled all over the bed this time. “Nah. And I’ll drag somebody back to help with me. If we’re giving everybody their own room, the least they can do is haul around some rocks.”

Chris makes a little bit of a face, which he hides by also getting up and starting to bundle together the soiled furs. He’s of the mind that a house that big will be a defensive liability, and it’s actually better to have them spread out some; he doesn’t seem quite as bad about keeping everybody together as the other werewolves, maybe because he’s a bitten. “If you don’t, we can handle it.”

“But I’m going to,” Stiles says. He smiles and after a second, Chris smiles back. Then leans over and darts a kiss on Stiles’ mouth, and an even quicker cheek-press against Stiles’ jaw. “I’ll try and get back for lunch, how about that?”

“That’s good,” Peter says softly. He comes in for his own kiss and nuzzle, then slides his body along Stiles as he moves to help Chris with the bedding. “We’ll look for you.”

* * *

Jackson and Lydia are fighting again, so Stiles immediately discounts them. And Danny, although Danny looks a little desperate for an excuse to not deal with his mates. But he’s the only one who will put up with a Jackson snit (since Scott is gone, because Scott is insanely helpful even when the people in need of it are stuck-up assholes), so if somebody’s going to make sure those two don’t bicker themselves into a mountainside, it’s going to be him.

Erica actually _asks_ if she can come back to the house, and only fusses a little when Stiles tells her she’s got to help out and not just watch. But then, she’s been working hard to impress Boyd, the were-cat she brought back with her the last time she and Scott went south.

Well, technically Boyd is a were-sabertooth tiger, but that’s a mouthful and he acts pretty much like the lone hunter were-cats Stiles has known. Keeps his mouth shut, spends a lot of his time off in the shade looking like a really muscular rock, and then, just when you think he’s fallen asleep, he mauls something.

Although he’s surprisingly obliging about pushing around boulders. “I’m not really sure if those two are courting or what,” Stiles says to Laura. “But if they are, a lot of were-cats use dens too, so he’ll want to show her he knows what he’s doing.”

Laura doesn’t immediately answer, because she’s sort of hanging her mouth open as Boyd casually smacks a fracture in one rock that’s the size of all the werewolves rolled together, breaking it apart. “Oh. Oh, well…but would she use a den?” she finally says. “I thought you liked caves. I mean, I know you use ours, but I thought that was just because we put it on a cliff.”

Erica whizzes by them, then whirls flashily so she can drop off a bag of mortar they got from the town. The trading caravans have started up again, and the townspeople are slowly figuring out that resident sphinxes _also_ tend to cut down on the number of bandit gangs (because the kind of assholes who hide out in the woods also usually don’t take care of them, and start forest fires and scare off game). So they’re starting to offer a wider variety of things for trade, although talks with them always give Chris a headache.

Speaking of headaches, Erica waves at them, grin saying she has _totally_ overheard their conversation, and is going to give Stiles hell about it later. Stiles makes a face and then nods pointedly at Boyd, who is shaking off some rock bits from his paws and ignoring Erica. Which Erica promptly fixes by landing on top of him.

“It depends more on the terrain,” Stiles says to Laura. “You need somewhere where you can catch the wind, and also see what’s coming at you. On the grasslands we nest on hilltops, and were-cats usually den up by those, too.”

In general, Laura isn’t quite as curious as Peter, but she’s gotten very interested in sphinx domestic matters over the past few weeks. “Oh, that makes sense,” she says, watching Erica and Boyd wrestle with each other. She hisses under her breath as Erica swipes at Boyd’s face, then relaxes when the two separate, only to lean comfortably against each other in a patch of sunlight. “They’re—so they are friendly, right?”

“More or less. Erica’s always kind of been like that.” Stiles’ left wingtip still aches sometimes when Erica smirks at him. She’s a great friend but man, sex with her had been exhausting. He doesn’t envy Boyd keeping up with that. “Her…um, her family group nested a lot farther down the cliff than we did, so she’s always hung out with were-cats. You can tell.”

Laura’s brow quirks a little. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Stiles automatically says. He resettles himself on the pile of rocks he…hasn’t really been sorting for the past couple minutes, and something flicks at the edge of his vision. “It’s—were-cats are sort of different from other races, at least for us.”

One of the kids, probably Cora. Derek was mean to her or something, so he should be down at the stream with Chris, doing punishment laundry. They sneak up within a few yards while Laura and Stiles pretend not to notice, then rustle off to bug Peter as he studies the crude blueprints they drew up for the foundation.

The pause gives Stiles some time to collect his thoughts, since Erica and Boyd are back to working and won’t be too distracted to eavesdrop. Boyd actually does seem to be as chill as he appears—at least, he doesn’t bat an eye when wolf Cora bursts from a bush and pounces his tail—but Stiles doesn’t know him that well, and has no idea how sabertooth tigers feel about their southern cousins.

“We mix a lot,” Stiles finally says. “We live in the same places and hunt the same things, and…well, you know, you take off the wings, we’re shaped pretty similar. Mating up is common. But we fight a lot, too. The first non-prey kill I made was a pair of were-cats who cornered me over a kill.”

Erica’s tail stills, then resumes swinging casually from side to side, and Boyd, who’s shifted human, doesn’t even twitch out his claws. So they’re fine. And then Stiles looks over, and Peter is no longer by the blueprints. Peter is a few yards away, distracting wolf Cora with a stuffed rabbit fur while he looks attentively at Stiles.

He almost never bothers hiding that these days, or even looking furtive about it. Laura’s a little less unrepentant about her sharpened interest, but not by much. “Does that happen a lot?” she asks.

“I don’t think as much as werewolves seem to get into fights. Like I said, it can go both ways. It’s more like a personal thing, like you’re friends with this were-cat or that pride of them, and you hate these other ones,” Stiles says. He watches Laura’s face, and listens to Peter’s heartbeat. “It’s not like we just straight up challenge any were-cat who wanders in, and they don’t either. You have to do something to each other first.”

Laura nods in acknowledgement. Her eyes drop a little and she looks uncertain, though still curious.

“I think werewolf packs run into each other much more rarely than you do, with other sphinxes or were-cats,” Peter breaks in. He’s sent Cora scampering towards the den, chasing the rabbit-hide ball, and has wandered over so that he can sit down by Stiles. “Once a pack’s established, we don’t travel much except for heat, or things like forest fires and famines.”

“So every stranger is a potential enemy?” Stiles says.

Both Peter and Laura go a little still, and Stiles wishes he’d made that sound less…mean. He gets that they’re different, that life is different in different places, and that they’re just how they are. It’s just that everything here seems so nasty sometimes, and then—Peter or Chris will smile at him, or the kids will flop over Laura in adorable wolfy sleep sprawls, and he just wonders how it all works.

“I mean,” Stiles starts, and then a sphinx roar echoes over them.

It’s Scott, and it’s urgent. Erica launches herself into the air before the roar dies away, and from another corner of the woods Stiles hears Danny calling out a reply—coming, coming—and Stiles’ own haunches twitch sharply. He only catches himself because somebody needs to explain before the werewolves flip out and scramble into a terrified knot in the den. They only made that mistake once, because it took nearly the whole day to coax just Peter back out.

“Scott’s back,” Stiles says.

Cora’s shot back to them and is human, clutching at Laura’s knees. Laura stoops and rubs her hand over Cora’s head, but she’s looking nervously at Stiles. “That’s a warning call,” she says. “Right?”

“He’s just—it’s not a warning, it’s more like a—he’s got something we need to see, I don’t know,” Stiles says. He shifts restlessly from foot to foot as more roars boom through the air, then pricks alert as he hears an unknown sphinx join in.

Wishes he hadn’t when Peter pushes hard against him, claws out and fangs dropping. “Who’s that?” Peter asks.

The werewolves can recognize their voices, but have a hard time telling the difference between calls. And it’s kind of hard to translate nuance—a thought strikes Stiles and he glances over at Boyd, who’s dropped what he’s doing to listen but who’s just intent, not panicky.

“I can hear,” Boyd says, like he’s reading Stiles’ mind. “Does he want me to come?”

Scott’s just calling for sphinxes, weirdly enough. He’s kind of the last one Stiles would think to specify that, but he is.

“Stiles?” Peter says, more insistently. More worried, too.

“It’s fine. It’s just…just sit and wait, he’ll be here in a couple minutes,” Stiles says, rubbing Peter’s shoulder. He flicks out his wings, trying not to notice how the werewolves all go into defensive crouches under them. If he could hold them in, he would, but it’s hard enough fighting down the instinct to jump into the air. “Just, I’m going to answer him, tell him to come over. All right?”

Laura’s eyes are a little red and glowy. “Does he have a new sphinx with him?”

“I’m going to see. Just—just _wait_ , all right?” And, much as Stiles doesn’t like relying on that, he lets a little snarl bleed into his voice.

Peter’s fangs disappear, though he keeps his claws out. He lowers his head, then relaxes slightly when Stiles pets the side of his neck. Laura bobs on her hands and the balls of her feet, but she also lowers her head.

Stiles roars once, and halfway through Scott answers him with a sort of sheepish tone, something along the lines of, didn’t mean to scare you, sure, will come to you. Rolling his eyes, Stiles is going to try and translate when Laura quickly stretches out her head and howls.

“Sorry,” she says, pulling back. She wraps her arm around a very quiet Cora, making a soothing rumble. “Just telling Chris and Derek.”

“Oh. Oh, right. Good, I forgot about them,” Stiles says, and Laura smiles at him. He hooks his hand over Peter’s neck and pulls the werewolf into him, then tries to look reassuringly at Cora. “It’s fine. He’s back, I’m sure it’s not a big deal.”

“About time, we were wondering,” Laura mutters. And then ducks her head sharply when Stiles looks at her.

Stiles…is not going to flip that stone over right now. He shakes his head, then chances stepping away from Peter so he can climb up to the highest part of the foundation. “You dumbass, Scott,” he says under his breath, scanning the sky. “This had better be good.”

* * *

So it’s good. Or something. And Scott just—has this completely insane ability to turn up with the most unlikely things, and Stiles speaks as somebody who got lost and ended up leading a werewolf pack after orchestrating the end to a really violent werewolf-hunter war.

Anyway, Scott brought an egg with him. Among other things.

“This is Isaac,” he says, and then he belatedly nods to the new sphinx. “Not the egg—”

Isaac’s sort of fidgety but he already knows to be amused at Scott. He’s sort of stiffly polite, keeping his wings tightly folded as he dips his head at them, wafting over his scent. “Hi.”

“The egg, um, I don’t—we don’t know what we should name them,” Scott says. He shifts it protectively in his arms, his upper lip actually lifting in a slight snarl as Erica gets too close. “The parents are dead.”

Everyone falls silent. They’re all clustered in front of the Hales’ half-built house. Sphinxes perched on whatever’s available, Boyd lurking in the back. The werewolves are crowded up behind Stiles, peeping around his tail and wings; they’re practically vibrating with fascination, but they’ve also gone very quiet and a little withdrawn, the way they do whenever they’re worried about overstepping with him. He tries to keep his tail brushing over them and keeps hearing little relieved puffs.

“There was this tornado,” Scott adds after a few seconds, unusually reticient. “I, um, I dropped to wait it out, and ended up in Isaac’s flock’s territory—”

“Well, what used to be it.” Isaac’s mouth twists, and he ducks his head in a half-shy, half-disgusted way. He doesn’t look anything like her, but he reminds Stiles of Laura, when she’s alluding to life under Talia. “We were a huge mess. Snakes got up into the roost, flock leader died, we all scattered.”

Scott’s grip tightens on the egg, while up above, Erica can’t help rattling her wings. She looks sorry when wolf Cora, yipping, dives under Stiles’ belly, and flicks them back to feathers.

“Yeah, I found a really huge snake skull right next to the nest where this egg was. It was the only one left, the rest were all smashed or too cold,” Scott says. He draws himself up a little, hindfur puffing up, wings mantling with the memory. “The parents’ skeletons were under the snake. One of them was—was actually _in_ the mouth, I think they managed to stab through the brain on the way down. I think they did get all the snakes in the end, but it’s just Isaac and this one who survived.”

Then he falls silent. His tail lashes angrily behind him, twice, before pulling around to curl tightly against his flank. He looks down at the egg in his arms, then pulls the hide carry-sling a little more closely around it. A little coo slips out of him and he ducks his head, blushing, and then he ducks further, puts his mouth right over the top of the egg and deliberately coos again.

The tiniest, faintest tap answers him. All the sphinxes coo, even Stiles, who is really not much of a nester, and Jackson, who wouldn’t fight with Lydia half as much if the two of them realized they both want to wait on kids. And Lydia, well, banshees don’t coo, but they have pretty similar group structures to sphinxes and she flits down from her stone pile to flutter her wings and spread her tail feathers, crooning. She doesn’t even look embarrassed when Scott, grinning, squats down and then carefully tips the egg towards her.

Though Lydia does hang back, letting all the sphinxes come over and lick and sniff the egg first, getting the scent. At that point, she takes a step forward, but then she looks at Stiles.

So does Erica, who’s shifted away her wings and is snuggling up with Boyd, sort of pushing him forward with her shoulder. “They going to or not?” she says.

Stiles blinks hard, then gets it and looks behind him at the werewolves. “So…uh, Scott’s adopting. I mean, flock is adopting,” he says slowly. “You don’t have to. You’re flock but you’re, well, we know you’re not…”

He’s kind of bad at this, even if he’s the son of a flock leader known up and down the trade winds. And knows a whole bunch of languages. And has been living with werewolves for nearly half a year now. He makes faces at himself while he talks, and almost misses it when Peter clears his throat.

“Do you want us to?” he says.

Which…can be a tricky question, what with werewolf instincts about alphas. Peter realizes, because he makes a face himself, and then edges up alongside Stiles, pressing his body against Stiles’ flank. His head is lower and his throat is slightly angled towards Stiles, but he keeps his eyes up and calm, even if he’s pawing the ground a little.

“We’ll welcome them, of course,” he says. He hesitates, then leans his hip hard into Stiles as Stiles rubs their shoulders together. “But do you want us to—to help?”

“We can, we just—we don’t know what you need,” Laura adds. She’s eased up behind Peter, head a little higher but still lower than Stiles’. She glances over at Scott, who’d started to explain, and then looks back at Stiles. “I mean, we want to. Babies are—”

Laura looks almost pained for a moment, except that she’s really, genuinely excited at the same time, and trying not to show it too much. Past her Chris also looks weirdly conflicted; he drops his eyes when he realizes Stiles is looking at him, then crouches down and starts trying to lure Cora out from under Stiles. And Peter’s just looking very blank, if intent on Stiles.

“Yeah, yeah, sure, can never have too many with an egg,” Stiles says. He’s relieved himself when they all relax. In fact, if anything, Peter and Laura look strangely flattered. “Um, just—well, go over and get the scent, and then we should—”

He looks at Scott, who’s more than happy to take over because Scott _loves_ this kind of thing, just loves it. Danny had once let it slip that their birth flock had tried to bribe Scott with no more hunting for life to stay and keep nestsitting, Scott is so ridiculous about eggs and cubs and fledglings.

“Nest up, get it warm and comfy,” Scott promptly says. “Warm, mostly. Isaac and I were flying as low as we could—oh, sorry, that’s why we took so long—”

Isaac swings off the pack strapped to his belly, then hands it over to Stiles, who squees a little, no lie, at seeing the scrolls and books tucked inside. The sphinx part of his collection, which is perfect timing, honestly.

“—but we still hit a lot of cold fronts,” Scott finishes. “But yeah, here, come say hi first.”

Laura scoots up first, because Peter hangs back to shift to wolf. When she notices, already bent over the egg, Laura pauses uncertainly, pushing back on her arm like she’s going to ease away. But Scott smiles at her and she smiles back, then dips and quickly sniffs the egg. She doesn’t lick it.

None of the werewolves do, although Peter touches his nose to the top for a second, and Chris—also gone to wolf—bobs his head by it, apparently measuring up the size. The kids come over in human form, but stay bundled up against Laura’s front as they gingerly sniff the egg. They look up with huge, wary eyes when Scott asks if they want to touch, and then stick their hands under their arms.

“Oh…did I say something wrong?” Scott says, looking chagrined. He moves the egg over so Lydia and Boyd can smell and lick, about as absentminded about that as it’s possible for Scott to get, and keeps looking right at Laura.

“No. No, no, just…we don’t touch other people’s kids for the first week. Messes up their scent, the mothers don’t like it. It’s fine, I’ll talk to them later,” Laura mutters. She pets her siblings with one hand, rubs her face with the other, not meeting Scott’s eyes. Then she takes a deep breath and pulls her head up and smiles a little tightly at him. “So where do we need to put it?”

* * *

The caves are all out, too prone to drafts, and a Nemeton nest would be way too small. Normally sphinxes would have an inner room that’d be more sheltered, but the caves are too small and the rock here is a lot harder to chip away. Which is one reason why the other sphinxes had been a lot more interested than normal in having rooms in an actual human-style house.

In the end, they go for the old den. Enough of the foundation’s been built up around it so that Laura and the kids have another room to sleep in, relegating the den to visiting sphinx space anyway (although at least once a week, Stiles and the werewolves all still pile into it together, which the werewolves swear is legitimate pack bonding even though Stiles thinks they’re just indulging his love of fuzzy self-heating balls). Scott keeps his stuff there when he’s back with their birth flock so it’s already convenient to him. They just need to clean it out a bit and dress up the bed.

“Why do you have so much _stuff_ ,” Jackson grunts, unloading another armful of books in Stiles’ cave. “Seriously, haven’t you read these all already? Why do you still have them?”

“Because books aren’t like prey, Jackson, they don’t disappear the first time you’re done with them.” Stiles grabs them up, dusts them off with a glare at the other sphinx, and then starts slotting them into the shelves Chris has been building into the cave walls. “You can reuse them.”

Jackson’s already stomped back up the passage, which is another plus as far as nests go. The rock might be a pain in the ass to excavate, but that means it’s too hard for anything but the biggest diamond snakes to crack through. And anything tries to get up through the cave, Stiles would get it first.

Still, after Scott’s story they’re all sort of nervous. So when a book on snakes slips out of the stack, Stiles sets it aside for later. Then he puts the rest away and turns around, only to find Chris leafing through the book.

“I don’t think any of these live up here,” Chris says. He pauses, his brows jumping slightly, and then slowly turns the page. Probably came across an illustration; if Stiles remembers right, that book can get pretty gruesome. “Gets too cold, they don’t make it through the winter. But we can set traps anyway, if you want.”

Chris doesn’t talk a lot about his hunter life, although they’ve used his skills more than once. But usually he just shows them, with a couple really curt comments for explanation. It sometimes irritates Stiles because he’d really love to swap knowledge like with Peter, and anyway, it’s not like anybody thinks Chris is going to cross back over. But he gets the feeling that that’s about Chris hating that time of his life as much as about not offending the Hales, so he just tries to be patient.

“Traps?” he says. He pads across the cave and curls up around the werewolf, nuzzling the back of Chris’ shoulder when Chris starts.

“Yeah.” Which is normally where Chris stops, but this time he takes a deep breath and then settles back into Stiles. He flips through the book some more, then stops on the section on the seps. “I can get camphor from trade, make some snake balls. Although the biggest ones around here, they’re probably the river serpents, and those don’t usually come out of the water. The land ones are very small, eat rats and things like that.”

Stiles hooks his chin over Chris’ shoulder, nuzzling a little at the side of Chris’ neck at the same time. That gets him a soft, burring invite, throaty but not yet a purr, so he loops his arm around Chris’ waist and then licks behind Chris’ ear as Chris tilts back into him.

“It’s a big danger for you, right?” Chris says, more quietly. He presses his forehead into Stiles’ cheek, lowers the book to the ground so that he can lean more of his weight against Stiles. “The books all say it’s serpent’s tooth—”

“It’s seps poison, actually. That and the titanoboa. Well, we call them diamond snakes,” Stiles says. “We’ve figured out antidotes to most snake venom but we still don’t have one for seps. And diamond snakes, they’re just—horrible. They can smash through rock, come up through the floor, and sometimes the older ones, they crawl through diamond ore and get those stuck into their scales, which are hard enough to get through by themselves. You can’t get one of our feathers through it.”

Chris goes still as Stiles shudders. Then he pushes away. Stiles thinks he’s trying to get out and unwraps the arm from his waist, but instead he just twists around so he’s half-lying under Stiles, looking up. He leans in, pauses, and then tentatively laps at Stiles’ jaw. Presses his cheek over the spot when Stiles doesn’t object, then stretches up further, noses in behind Stiles’ ear as Stiles sighs and pets his belly and thighs.

“We just really hate snakes,” Stiles says. “There’s a lot more down south. And they get a lot bigger. Big enough to wrap all the way around a grown sphinx.”

“So there’s one upside of it being so cold here,” Chris says. Then he noses at Stiles again, like that’s going to make Stiles miss the little hint of humor in his voice. He never really gets as smug as Peter does, but he can get pretty amused.

Stiles huffs and pushes Chris down by the shoulders, flopping on top of him. Chris doesn’t even start, just goes slack right away, chin tipping back, throat vibrating with a low purr. His fingers sift into Stiles’ hindfur, combing roughly—the winter shag’s starting to come off and it’s itchy so Chris’ hands feel so _good_ —and then slide to lace together over Stiles’ back as Stiles laps and nips just under his jaw.

He doesn’t want to fuck Chris, isn’t really that in the mood, what with snakes on the mind. But it makes him feel better just lying with the werewolf, pressing down on a firm, welcoming body, listening to Chris’ purring. He’s got a good thing here, he thinks, not for the first time. They’ll be all right.

Chris spreads his legs a little, so Stiles slides down between them. His cock twitches where it’s nestled in Stiles’ hindfur but he doesn’t try and push for anything. When Stiles stops mouthing his jaw, he rumbles a little and then goes quiet, his hands loosely folded across Stiles’ spine.

“It’s the eggs, mostly,” Stiles adds. He should try harder to explain to them. He does a half-assed job of it most of the time, honestly, and it’s a good thing that both Peter and Chris like reading and are smart enough to sort out the fake stuff from the real. “I mean, the diamond snakes, they’ll kill adults, but I don’t think we taste very good to them. They really want the eggs. Can kill a whole flock, looking for them.”

Chris listens solemnly. Sympathetically, but aside from pushing up his knees to grip at Stiles’ hips, he doesn’t try and—say something stupid, like he’s sorry for something he has nothing to do with. “You know how to kill them?” he says. “There’s got to be a better way than going through the roof of their mouth.”

He’s thoughtful about it, kind of coolly thoughtful, obviously reviewing some old hunt lesson in his head. Sometimes Stiles finds that a little…weird. It’s not like sphinxes don’t discuss hunt tactics too, but it’s how they get things like food and defense done, that’s all. Chris—and Peter and Laura, though they are less obvious about it—sometimes acts like fighting off things is the point itself. It’s a little like those old, loner sphinxes who attach to temples and oases as guardians, except…maybe more violent.

But right now, Stiles has to admit, it’s kind of reassuring. Snakes are one of the few things sphinxes go all-out at, no questions asked, and it’s nice that he doesn’t have to work to explain why. “A seps is pretty fragile, it’s just really fast and really poisonous. If you can dodge it, you just do the usual—bite them through the neck, break their back, that sort of thing. Diamond snakes are a lot harder. Even if you get one, they live in nests so you always have to track back and make sure you get the whole bunch.”

“You can blind them, right?” Chris asks. “Their eyes aren’t made of diamond.”

“You have to get in pretty close for that, too,” Stiles says, frowning.

Chris shrugs. “Maybe not. It’s been a while but I used to be pretty good with a bow.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s an idea.” Because it’s not like sphinxes haven’t tried shooting off primaries, but those are usually too wide, and get caught on the ridges over the snake’s eyes. Then Stiles shakes his head, because good idea, but not what he wants to think about right now. “But they don’t live up here, anyway, so I don’t think we need to worry. I don’t know if they’d go after werewolves anyway, even if they did.”

Chris frowns so hard he’s almost scowling. His hands lift off Stiles’ back and he sucks in his breath over his teeth. Then he swings his arms behind himself, pushing up on his elbows as Stiles, puzzled, sits up on him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. He looks very intently at Stiles. “We’d go after them anyway. This is our territory—it’s yours. We’d fight for you.”

He slides up a little more, till he’s almost out from under Stiles, then leans in and presses his forehead to Stiles’ chin. Then Stiles’ forehead, breathing slowly. A human thing, Stiles is pretty sure; werewolves would go for the throat. And Chris does eventually, tucking himself under Stiles’ jaw, but only after Stiles croons at him, slides firm hands up and down Chris’ arms.

“Hey,” floats a voice through the cave. Erica, just inside the passage. “So…if you’re doing something, just say, but otherwise, we’re going to talk shifts now.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, we’ll be up.” Stiles grips Chris’ upper arms, holding him when he starts, and then nuzzles his throat as he growls irritably. Then kisses his temple, climbing off him. “Yeah, yeah. You want a bow again, I get it.”

Chris sighs but he doesn’t exactly deny it. His hips swing over to graze against Stiles’ side, and then he gets to his feet, following Stiles over to the passage. “Shifts?”

“Well, you can’t just have one warming the egg, when are they going to eat and wash and piss?” Stiles says. “And the wing cramps. They are _awful_ , seriously, and you don’t want to step through an egg just ‘cause you’re having a spasm.”

“Is this why you share nests?” Chris says. He’s amused but there’s a strange undercurrent of tension to his voice. The others’ voices are starting to filter down and when Scott’s voice rises above the chatter, yelping at somebody to watch out, Chris winces a little.

Chris…likes Scott, sort of, in that he seems to appreciate Scott’s caution when it comes to exploring strange things. But sometimes Stiles catches him looking at Scott funny, especially when Scott’s around Derek and Cora. The kids, like any younglings, _love_ Scott because he lets them abuse him. 

If Stiles was younger, and wasn’t already mates with the werewolf, he might wonder whether Chris was jealous of how much Laura loves that the kids love Scott. But that’s not it; Laura might have been the one to bite Chris but he’s made it clear over and over that he bargained with her for that, and only so he could stay and see if Stiles was going to stick around. “You don’t have to be involved in that,” Stiles says, watching the werewolf. “We’ve got more than enough bodies.”

“If you do need more, you can ask me,” Chris says. He’s a little quick and he realizes that. Grimacing, Chris slows, and then he stops just before they come out the other end of the passage. “Sorry. It’s not—it’s just…I used to want kids. My own. That woman I told you I was courting…”

She’s still alive, so far as they know. Stiles was a little curious as to whether Chris would do anything, but Chris hasn’t even attempted to send her a message. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, well, then my father came back,” Chris mutters. His mouth and voice twist bitterly. Then he crouches down so that he can touch shoulders with Stiles again. “And I haven’t seen a child since except when he was terrifying them, or trying to kill them, or both. I don’t know if I’d know what to do with a kid who wasn’t scared of me.”

“Derek and Cora don’t mind you now,” Stiles says, blinking.

“They’re fine. But I don’t think they’ve forgotten, you know.” Chris shrugs and looks away, scratching at the side of his jaw. “Not that I can blame them. They’re better about me than they have to be, but I think they’ll both be grown before they forget, if ever. Just as well, they need to be careful.”

Stiles dislikes a _lot_ about that, but he doesn’t know if he can disagree, unfortunately. He tries not to get too involved in the whole back history between the Hales and Chris; they both seem to want to work it out on their own, and he doesn’t think it’ll help if he blunders in and starts making them be nice. Mostly he just keeps an eye out that they don’t get too mad. And tries to soothe them when they are upset, even though he’s not the greatest at it.

Still, he decides it’s worth a try, and leans over to nip at Chris’ throat. Chris stiffens, then almost slumps over, he presses back against Stiles so hard. He purrs a little, then gets up. Pets his hand down Stiles’ back as he rises. Doesn’t say anything.

But he looks better, so they go on into the old den. It’s a _very_ tight fit and Danny and Jackson have to stand outside in an unroofed hall, but everybody’s there. Scott’s on the bed with the egg, half-buried in mounds of furs and blankets, and even a couple fluffy pillows (Lydia and Danny learned embroidery from a bazaar stand owner, and like to bitch about Jackson while stitching). 

Cora and Laura are fussing around the bottom, trying to stuff in one more blanket, even though Scott’s calling down to them that he thinks it’s fine without that. Nest-building is a sort of sphinx bonding thing, everybody bringing pieces, but when Stiles tugs her back, Laura growls irritably enough for him to wonder if it’s a werewolf one too.

And then Stiles gets a hold of the blanket she was messing with, and he’s completely distracted. It’s incredibly soft and even just lying across his hand, he can tell it’s going to be really, really warm. And it’s _fuzzy_.

“It’s called flannel,” Peter says, coming over, deeply amused. “We just got some from the last caravan. We were going to surprise you with it on the next full moon, but…”

“…mine,” Stiles mumbles, unashamedly cuddling it.

Erica cuffs him. “Nice one, mighty flock leader, steal it from the defenseless egg.”

“He’s not stealing, I’ve got three more of those up here,” Scott, loyal buddy, says. He squirms over to the edge of the bed so that he can see them all. “I think we’re plenty warm. It’s springtime anyway, the weather should be getting better.”

They all look up at him. Scott looks simultaneously annoyed and embarrassed, and then rolls his shoulders and clears his throat and gets down to business.

For all that Stiles personally thinks a good, strong discussion is better than just flat-out ordering people around, he admits that sometimes sphinxes get too into the sound of their own voices. The kids start off practically quivering with interest, but somewhere around Scott and Lydia’s third round of debating the merits of four- versus six-hour shifts, they nod off, sprawling over Laura’s feet, Derek wrapped around Cora.

Laura looks a little bored, too, but she doesn’t want to leave, and eventually Chris slips over and scoops up the kids to take them into the other room. Stiles works his way behind Erica to slide up next to Peter, who looks both bored and just about ready to cause a distraction. Which may or may not do what Peter wants it to.

Peter’s capable of some very terrible things, as he himself admits (or brags, depending on the situation), but these days when he gets somebody mad, he seems to genuinely not expect it half the time. It’s like he thought they’d just see it his way, and gets confused. Just for a second, before his back goes up and he gets mad right back, because all the werewolves snap on defense at the slightest hint of danger, but he does.

“I wasn’t going to,” he murmurs, nuzzling at Stiles’ jaw. Because he’s not dumb, he knows he has that tendency. He just can’t seem to help himself some days.

Stiles snorts, wrapping his arm over Peter’s shoulders, and then calls for a damn vote already.

After that, they get a rotation worked out pretty quickly, and everybody starts filtering out. Except that Scott calls Stiles back, with a little bit of a yawn. “I know I said I’d go first, but can somebody stay with me, at least till I get a nap? I think the last stretch wore me out more than I thought.”

“Sure,” Stiles says, and then frowns when everybody hesitates.

The natural pick would be Isaac, seeing as he and the egg are from the same flock, but Isaac’s actually off sleeping on top of the den with Boyd, something about being tired out from chasing off some harpies they ran into. Anyway, he and Boyd are the newest, and while the werewolves will take in anybody who gets vouched for, that doesn’t mean they’re comfortable with them. And Isaac had actually looked a little relieved himself at not having to go in, for some reason—Scott had hissed that he’d tell Stiles about it later and Stiles will definitely have to follow up on it. That’s not normal sphinx behavior.

“We need to go find the new one a place,” Jackson says. Like an asshole, but he’s right; Isaac’s not going to fit anywhere they have now, unless he comes into the den, and with the way the weather is, he needs a roof over his head sooner rather than later.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Stiles says, waving him off.

Jackson takes Danny and Lydia with him, which leaves Erica. Except Erica’s on patrol today and she’s already delayed that by a couple hours. So Stiles should go help out with that, except the moment he moves towards the door, the werewolves—Chris is back from putting the kids to bed—all go on alert.

“You just need to wake me up once an hour,” Scott says to them, feeling the tension. “It’s no big deal, it’s just I’m worried the egg will get too warm.”

Stiles starts to chime in, but just then Erica takes the opportunity to squeeze past him and outside. She’s been tweaking her folded wings for the past ten minutes and has the face of a sphinx who is desperately trying not to flutter spastically, so Stiles doesn’t call her back. But the distraction means he misses something, because when he turns back, the werewolves are all edging up towards him again.

“Too warm?” Laura blurts. She looks at the pile of bedding around Scott like she’s just learned it’s made out of woven snakes.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Scott says soothingly. He smiles at her, then reaches back and pats the little sliver of egg that’s showing. “It’s a good thing to have that problem. Lot easier to deal with. You just have to keep an eye on—well, I’ll keep an eye on it, and you just need to make sure I do.”

Or Stiles isn’t really missing anything, he’s just seeing the usual almost flirt these two have going on. Except—no, Peter’s looking concerned, too, and Chris is…kind of rocking on his feet, very slightly, like he’s thinking about bolting back for the kids. And Laura is smiling back at Scott but it’s nervous. It’s kind of like watching a fledgling standing on a cliff, staring over the edge as their parents try to coax it into spreading its wings.

Well, timing’s everything with flying, and with werewolves, sometimes they just don’t want to talk about it. So Stiles clears his throat, then climbs up onto the bed next to Scott. “I got your back, Scotty,” he says. “Least I can do.”

“Since this is my fourth trip and you _still_ have stuff with your dad,” Scott mutters, but he doesn’t look unhappy. He does look a little wistful as Laura backs off, muttering about checking on the kids, but then he turns around and rubs the egg again. Keeps his hand on it as he yawns again, stretching out his hindlegs. “I’m wiped, wow. Those winds over the mountains suck.”

“Yeah.” Stiles pushes around the bedding till he’s got a comfortable hollow. He doesn’t look over at Peter and Chris, not wanting to pressure them, but he keeps a spot open between him and Scott and the egg just in case.

Neither of them take it. Chris has to go do some chores, while Peter…decides to help him. Although Peter at least comes over and asks whether he can get anything for Stiles, food or water or book. Stiles picks book, obviously, and Peter smiles but it’s a little tense.

“They all right?” Scott mumbles. His head is down but his eyes aren’t closed all the way. “Did we—was it something that happened to them?”

“I think you should take a nap,” Stiles says after a second. He reaches over and ruffles his fingers through Scott’s hair, then rubs right between Scott’s shoulderblades, where the muscle knots are the worst. “They’re fine for now, we’ll look into it later. Got it?”

“Don’t let me forget,” Scott says, drifting off. Because he’s not just a good listener, he’s a good doer, too.

“Nope.” Stiles stares at where his werewolves had been. “Not much chance of that, buddy.”

* * *

Chris comes back in a little less than an hour, with one of his dad’s books for Stiles. “Peter says sorry, but he and Laura caught a whiff of an omega on the northern border,” he says. He hesitates, then, setting his jaw, pulls himself up and onto the bed, tucking into Stiles on the side opposite from the egg. “They went with Erica and Isaac to go chase them off.”

“Isaac?” Stiles says.

Scott’s head lifts. He shakes it so his rumpled crest of hair jiggles, then starts passing his hand over and over the top of it, trying to flatten that down. Then he opens his eyes wide and starts up, barely remembering to put his hand out to steady the egg. “Isaac? Is he all right? Did he have a nightmare?”

More than a little concerned, Chris pushes up onto his knees and repeats what he just told Stiles. “Is something wrong with him?” he says when he’s done. “He just seemed curious about what we were doing. Said he wanted to stretch his wings some, too.”

“Oh. Oh, no, he’s…nah, it’s probably fine.” Though Scott debates that for a few more seconds before nodding decisively. “He went with Erica, right? That’s fine, she talks so much that they won’t be able to say anything.”

“What, the omega?” Stiles says.

But Scott’s already halfway off the bed, still rubbing his head. He walks purposefully towards the den entrance and Stiles considers throwing a pillow after him, then shrugs. Settles back with his book, and then loops Chris down with him.

Scott just needs to piss, or get a drink of water, or whatever. He always is kind of distracted right when he first wakes up, and as soon as he does what he needs, he’ll be bounding back, ready to talk out everything. And Erica might seem like a flake, but she’s one of the better fighters, with all that were-cat tussling, and she can look out for Peter and Laura, if it comes to that. Which it probably won’t; word’s getting around that a sphinx is something you should run from.

Chris is clearly a little less certain, but he seems satisfied to just take Stiles’ lead on this one. He slides his legs into the furs and then drapes his arm and head over Stiles’ back. Facing towards the entrance, so at first Stiles thinks he’s waiting for Scott to come back. But the hour mark hits and Stiles whistles, and when Chris starts, he realizes the werewolf had been eyeing the egg.

“Hey, sorry, I need to…” Stiles mutters, easing away from Chris. He reaches out and puts his hand on the egg, whistling again.

The baby inside clicks and taps vigorously. Stiles palms the egg some more, considering, and then pulls it over to cradle against his belly. It’s definitely not too warm but he’s not sure about the other way, since they have no idea how old it is.

He moves, shifting more of his weight to his hip, and his shoulder knocks hard into something. Cursing, Chris flops back, and then crouches and rubs his jaw, looking embarrassed. Hunched shoulders, deep blush, and the first time Stiles reaches for him, he withdraws from it, snarling. Then looks mad at himself for it, and comes belly-down up to rub his head against Stiles’ arm. Still as far as he can be from the egg, and still be touching Stiles.

Stiles bites back a sigh and runs his hand through Chris’ hair, squeezing lightly every time it drops to the werewolf’s nape, until Chris relaxes. Chris gives him another apology nuzzle, then cranes around to look at the egg.

“It’s not going to break if you touch it, you know,” Stiles says. “I mean, don’t jump on it, obviously, but they’re tougher than they look. And we don’t mind if it smells like the whole flock.”

Chris nods, but just looks from where he is. He does shift his arms so he’s more comfortable, lying half-curved around Stiles, and Stiles is just thinking they’ll have to make do when Chris puckers his lips and lets out a shaky but definitely credible whistle.

It’s good enough that the egg bursts into a racket of clattering, which makes Stiles laugh. He catches a glimpse of Chris’ nervous face and impulsively kisses the werewolf. Then again, leaning over with one arm around the egg to keep it from rolling off, as Chris reciprocates eagerly, stretching up on his elbows to moan into Stiles’ mouth.

“Not in front of the egg.” Scott, back and less tousled, looking very amused. Although he turns guilty when Chris immediately drops down. “Um, I’m kidding…they can’t see through the shell…um, anyway…”

“Spoil the mood, why don’t you,” Stiles mutters. He pushes the egg back over to him, then slides half-onto Chris, curling his hands around the werewolf’s shoulders as he nuzzles into Chris’ nape. “So. Isaac.”

Chris whuffs out once, a deeply contented noise for all that he’s licking his slightly reddened lips, and then puts his head down. He’s alert and listening but he’s calm about it, comfortable under Stiles.

“Yeah. He…still doesn’t really talk much, but I think his flock leader, who was his dad, was a little…” Scott makes the universal hand gesture for crazy “…something about a snake-bite that never healed right, hurt him all the time so he had a bad temper. Anyway, apparently, the snakes got in because flock leader wouldn’t let them track down the nest. And—I get the impression he saw a lot of bad stuff.”

Stiles raises his brows, although he tries to keep it from filtering down into Chris, and just keeps resting his cheek on the back of Chris’ neck. He’s sure the werewolves are going to talk about this among themselves and keep an eye out anyway. “Yeah?”

“I mean, he’s fine. He’s all right, he helped me a lot, saved me a couple times. He just sort of…doesn’t like enclosed places now,” Scott says awkwardly, and a little sadly. He’s both the most optimistic sphinx Stiles has ever met, always believing the best of people, and also one of the most pessimistic, in a weird, sympathetic way. He never doubts that somebody’s horror story couldn’t be true. “Or people trying to kill him. He can go a little nuts on them.”

“That actually sounds pretty normal to me,” Stiles can’t help saying.

Scott rolls his eyes, then sobers up again. “I mean, he dives and doesn’t pull out. That kind of nuts.”

“Oh.” Stiles considers this. “Oh. Well. Yeah. We should…we should work on that. At least teach him how to squish things and survive, Scott, which fortunately, you’re good at.”

“You’re a jerk,” Scott says affectionately. He croons absently as the egg clicks, then rolls over onto his side, holding egg between knee and belly. Mounds up the blankets around it with one hand as he stares at Stiles, thankful and proud at the same time. “So great, because we’re kind of friends at this point, and he’s got nowhere to go and I was feeling really bad, because he was following me up just to make sure the egg and I got here fine and I didn’t want to—”

“We weren’t going to kick him out today, dumbass,” Stiles says. He thwaps Scott with his tail, then yanks it back before Scott can grab it. “Though I hope somebody told Jackson before he went off. You know he’ll be pissed if he finds the best cave ever or whatever, and then Isaac doesn’t want it.”

Scott sighs, because Jackson. Frankly, they’re all still wondering how he ended up worming his way into their flock. “I told Lydia a little, she should get it. And yeah, I know. But I was thinking since it’s getting warmer and they can’t find something, maybe the Nemeton—”

“I don’t think it’s _that_ warm yet. Anyway, the tree’s still a little weird. I checked on it last week, still hungry for blood. It’s like nobody’s fed the thing in years,” Stiles says.

“Because nobody has. My father drove out its caretaker something like ten years ago,” Chris says.

Stiles and Scott look at each other, then make the same face. “Well, that’s definitely out, I don’t want to make Isaac hunt extra,” Scott says. “I think he’d be fine on the foundation, actually? It’s nice and high so he can take off whenever. Can we just build him a shed or something?”

He’s asking Chris, since Chris and Peter are the ones who know anything about human architecture. Chris blinks hard, then thinks on it, making absent little noises in his throat. “It’d be quicker to throw some planks over the root cellar. Is that too enclosed?”

“I’ll ask him, but I think that might work,” Scott says. “We’re not burying the walls till the rest of the foundation’s done, right? No, I think that might be fine. Great, thanks.”

Stiles laps at the back of Chris’ neck for good measure. He’d like to nibble at the side of it, but judging by how Chris is reddening—still, arching his neck up towards Stiles—that might be pushing it with Scott there. Scott’s sort of shy about sex, for a sphinx, and Peter doesn’t mind people watching but Chris hates it, gets weird even about Laura seeing them.

That settled, Stiles and Scott catch up on birth flock news while Chris half-listens, then dozes off. Stiles’ dad is, apparently, threatening to come up for a visit later in the year, once the flock’s settled into its usual wintering spot. Something about wanting to know what on earth could possibly get Stiles to move his library. And Scott’s mom is going out on mating flights again, which Scott has mixed feelings about.

“It’s not like I want her to be alone. And I know she wants to start another family, now that I’m out of the nest for good, but I just…I don’t think any of her choices are too good right now. And I’m not jealous, Stiles, so don’t even start,” Scott mutters, face half-in the bedding, egg clutched to his side like a fledgling toy. “They’re not great hunters, any of them. That’s not just my opinion, it’s the truth.”

Stiles is trying to not snicker, so that he can say something reassuring—he feels for Scott, really, but Melissa can take out a ground sloth by herself, so he thinks she can drive off an asshole suitor—when an approaching werewolf lets out a warning bark. Chris stirs, then rubs his face against the furs and lifts his head. He tilts his head, clearly checking his internal clock, and then mutters a curse.

“I was supposed to go change out the tanning hides,” he says, slithering out from under Stiles.

“Oh, I saw them and took care of it, but you can go start dinner,” Peter says as he comes in, equal parts charm and lofty assurance. He smiles at Chris, who snorts but who heads off to the designated kitchen area.

Stiles jumps down too, pausing to stretch out his back and legs and tail. Laura’s right behind Peter and he nods at her, then huffs as one of his ankles pops. “Ugh. I should go fly patrol.”

“Erica’s still out. She said she’d do the whole woods, no problem, she wanted to work on her stamina anyway,” Laura says. She sounds a little puzzled about the last part, and looks even more so when Scott coughs violently and Stiles laughs.

“Well, that settles that, doesn’t it?” Stiles says, looking up at Scott. “Lydia owes me a new pillow.”

Laura can be as sharp as Peter sometimes. About certain subjects, with certain sphinxes, who turn adorably red when they’re flustered. “Oh, is this about mating flights?” she says, grinning.

Scott coughs a last time, then flops over his arm, looking just a little irritable. “Is she trying for a record clutch or something?” he mutters. “Boyd’s going to fall asleep before she comes down.”

“Now, now, Scott, let’s not be petty,” Stiles says. He pauses, then gives in and reaches back up to pat Scott on the shoulder. “No, it’s not that, actually. She told me that sabertooth tigers impress each other with the size of their kill. So I think she’s gearing up to go over the steppes and get him a mammoth.”

“Doesn’t help,” Scott says into his arm. But he lifts his head as Stiles heads down to the cave, Peter in tow. “Hey, you want to come up? These flannel blankets are really warm, they’re great.”

He’s talking to Laura, a hopeful lilt in his voice. Laura looks appreciative, but she’s still hanging back. Stiles pauses, wondering if he should help out, and Peter nudges him and discreetly shakes his head.

“You should let them work it out,” Peter says when they’re down in the cave. “She’s not being coy, she just…wants to understand what he wants. And to know that he’s not looking for something she can’t give.”

“Scott’s not like that,” Stiles says, because that’s instinct for him with his best friend. Then he turns and frowns at Peter. “Or is this some werewolf thing we don’t know about? Is that what you mean? Is it a thing from back when Talia was alpha?”

Peter looks unhappy, but if Stiles is asking, he always tries to answer. “It’s a little of both, I think,” he says after a long silence. “We don’t court the same way, you know.”

“Yeah, I do, but I don’t see why that means she’s nervous around the egg. It’s not like Scott’s going to run off once it hatches, if that’s what you’re thinking. Definitely not his style—his dad ditched his clutch and his mother to a snake attack, so believe me, Scott doesn’t run,” Stiles says. But that’s not it, says Peter’s face, even though Peter looks like he’s reevaluating his opinion of Scott. “It’s not a heat thing, right? Hey, was that what that omega was showing up for? Laura said she’d probably get it in a week or so, right?”

“That’s…several topics at once.” Sometimes Peter can sound a little too much like the books he reads. Usually when he’s feeling very uncertain, or defensive. “ _Scott_ isn’t quite a heat issue. The omega…probably thought about it, once he smelled her, but I doubt he’s thinking anything like that now.”

“Oh. Oh, good,” Stiles says, because he hates dealing with omegas. He’s not sure what it is about being a lone werewolf, but omegas always seem so obviously wrong in the head, irrational and aggressive and stupid, that he has to remind himself they all started out in a pack. Kind of makes him see why they were so desperate to keep an alpha around, and keep them together.

And then he frowns, because Peter’s dodging him on the other question. He’s going to ask, and then…he doesn’t. Peter’s trying to look casual, but he’s starting to tip up his chin and show his throat.

Irritation flares up in Stiles and he takes a couple steps towards the entrance. He came down because even if Erica doesn’t need him, he really could use another flight. Stretch out his wings. Clear his head some, with all the stuff that’s happened today. And he knows he shouldn’t get so exasperated over the werewolves, that they’re all trying as hard as they can, but sometimes it just is so complicated and slow.

“Stiles,” Peter says, half-pleading, half-regretful. He drops to his hands and knees, his thighs twitching because he wants to roll over onto his back. But he keeps that in check and just bows his head instead, because that’s how much they adjust for him.

So now Stiles really wants a flight because he feels like an asshole, and he hates feeling like that and just wants to go shake it off. But he fights that off and comes back. Pets his hand over Peter’s back, rubbing at a shoulderblade, and then he slides both hands up into Peter’s hair, lifting Peter’s head so they can look each other.

“It’s fine. I’m not mad. I just—I’m going to fly for a little bit. My back’s cramping, I haven’t gone out since this morning,” he says. He nuzzles at Peter’s cheek and jaw, then nips lightly down the side of Peter’s neck as he talks. Paws Peter’s hair again, letting his fingers drag in the loose curls as Peter whines, shivering, and presses close. “I just need to stretch out. Be right back, all right?”

Peter rubs his face into Stiles’ shoulder and for a second Stiles thinks maybe he didn’t hear. But then he nods. It’s short and curt, and he follows it up with a hard press of his nose and mouth against Stiles’ collarbone, breathing deeply. His shoulders tremble under Stiles’ hands.

Then Peter backs off. He’s trying very hard to compose himself, but he still looks longing as he sinks back onto their bed. Longing and raw and just a little resigned, too.

So Stiles doesn’t exactly have much of a flight, after that. He _did_ need one, the muscles in his wings and back thank him as they laze out on a strong updraft, but his head is totally not into it. When the wind naturally circles him back down, he’s tempted to just dive for his ledge.

Except that’d be noisy as hell, and probably panic everybody. He comes down for a calm, unhurried landing, shifts away his wings, and then he scurries in and lets out a stupidly loud breath when he sees Peter still lying on the bedfurs.

Peter was pretending to read the snake book, but he pushes that away almost as Stiles comes in. He gets up onto his knees and then twists on them so that they’re flank to flank, rubbing his head all along Stiles’ throat and under Stiles’ jaw, as soon as Stiles is near enough. At first Stiles rubs back, but Peter’s just edgy enough that it makes him more anxious instead of calming him, sliding his whole body against Stiles. Stiles wraps an arm around him, and when that doesn’t seem to soothe him, just pushes him down on his belly.

He’s kind of rough, but Peter shudders as soon as he hits the furs, and not in an aroused way. More like, he’d been holding it in for too long and it’d gotten stuck or something, and now that it’s finally shaking out of him, he’s just slack and grateful. He makes small, needy noises, then quiets as Stiles climbs onto him, blanketing over his back.

Quiet for Peter is usually a bad sign. Either he’s plotting, or he’s really afraid he’s upset Stiles. But when Stiles peers down, Peter’s looking back at him, eyes…not exactly calm, but they’re a lot more settled.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. He rocks his cheek against the furs, then sighs. “Damn. We’re not only a bunch of terrified, ignorant puppies, Stiles. I realize you haven’t seen a lot of evidence of that, but—”

“You sound stupid.” So Stiles didn’t mean for it to come out like _that_. He winces, then licks at Peter’s nape in apology. Croons a little when Peter sighs again, much more happily, and starts prodding and stroking along the werewolf’s spine.

Peter might not be a sphinx, or Chris, but he’s got enough tension knotted up in his muscles that he gasps a little as they start to unwind. He arches and Stiles moves his knees to the furs, giving Peter more room, and then he lifts his chin and purrs. His hand gropes back till he can pet briefly at Stiles’ flank, then drops to knead at the bedding.

“I think what I was trying to say, earlier, was that Laura’s very much interested in your friend, but she doesn’t know what kind of commitment he’s looking for, and she is almost on her heat,” Peter says, voice steadying. “And it’s her first without being under Talia’s watch, so she’ll—she’ll be much more fertile than usual.”

Stiles cocks his head. If it was anybody but Peter, it’d make sense why they’d be so weird about just saying that straight out. But Peter will discuss fertility cycles while removing an elk fetus from their kill’s uterus, so…he’s still not sure what’s going on. “Well, if that’s the problem, I thought I—maybe I didn’t explain right, but sphinxes don’t have kids until we want to. That’s even if we’re mating outside our race. Although for the record, Scott really, really wants kids. Unless Laura doesn’t? Because he’s not like that, he wouldn’t make her—”

“No, Laura would like a family, too.” Peter pauses. “Perhaps not right away. Cora’s still a handful, and Derek’s just hitting his difficult years, if he’s anything like the rest of us. It’s more—well, would your friend want sphinxes?”

Oh, _that_. Honestly, he should’ve guessed, that one comes up so much. “She’s not going to lay eggs if they get together,” Stiles says. “I think they might have a chance of popping out a were-cat, if werewolves work like were-hyenas. But no eggs. And Scott’s going to have a baby sphinx now, so if that was ever a question, it’s already covered.”

“A were-cat? A full shift, or one with just the hind end like your leonine shift?” Peter asks, blinking. He shifts absently, rolling his shoulderblades into Stiles’ prodding fingers, and then shakes his head. “No, we should—later. Save that for later. Stiles, I didn’t mean that, fascinating as it is. I meant…I meant we’re not—we’ve only raised werewolves, Stiles. And we weren’t—we weren’t right. Derek and Cora survived, they might even not be too hurt by it, but…”

One moment he’s distracted and intrigued, the next he’s so tense lying on him feels like lying on rock, his voice dropping almost completely away when it’s not breaking. Peter’s hand curls so tight into the furs that Stiles almost grabs it, covers it, just because it looks like the knuckles are splitting through the skin. They’re that white. And Peter is that shaky, even with Stiles nosing at his neck.

“You’re good,” Peter adds after a long, trembling pause. His eyes close tightly. “You are so very, very good, Stiles. I don’t know if you want—even if you show us what to do, I don’t know if you want—”

They have no idea what Scott’s dragged him out of, Stiles almost says. Almost, because that just—it’s too light. It’s wrong, sounding that flip, when Peter is shivering like somebody turned all the blood in him to ice.

Stiles licks his nape some more, rubbing down his back. Screws up for a second, sliding his hands off Peter to the furs; he just means to push them under the werewolf but Peter takes it differently, pulling his arms under himself and trying to get up. Which, no. Stiles might be bad at this sort of thing but damn it, he’s going to try, and he can’t do that if Peter runs off.

He grabs Peter’s arms and pulls Peter back. Doesn’t really want to be rough about it, but Peter fights a little and Stiles bites Peter’s neck. Nape, not side, but Peter whimpers and stops fighting and flattens out again like it doesn’t make a difference. 

Purring, nursing the bitten spot, Stiles runs his arms up and down Peter’s, gradually working them till they’re lying flat over Peter’s head. But he can’t get at Peter’s neck so easily that way, so he ends up pulling them back in, almost till they’re tucked under Peter’s head. Peter doesn’t resist but he’s still trembling, not pushing back. He hitches as Stiles laves over to the side of his throat, pressing down along the tendons, but then pulls back. Tries to just make himself still.

Stiles is getting a little frustrated, he’s not going to lie. He doesn’t know what the werewolf is looking for, what Peter needs. He humps up on his knees and his wings instinctively shift out to counterbalance, and the flicker of them catches Peter’s eye, makes him turn his head unexpectedly so Stiles’ teeth rake off the tendon and onto the softer flesh over the arteries.

Peter shudders suddenly, very hard, all through him. And then it’s like something broke and he can’t hold still, rocking back up into Stiles, rubbing his ass into Stiles’ groin, the backs of his shoulders into Stiles’ chest. He twists his head further over and Stiles bites the same spot, then _gets_ it, just as Peter mewls wistfully. 

He bends down and sucks at Peter’s throat, pressing his tongue right over the pulse. Whimpering, Peter twists his arms under Stiles’ grip, and then rolls himself half-over as Stiles abruptly lets go. He stares up at Stiles wide-eyed, frozen, before Stiles finishes ducking under his arm and rolls him the rest of the way onto his back, immediately sliding back on top. Stiles cups the gorge of Peter’s throat with his mouth, sucking lightly, and then backs off as Peter shudders again. He holds onto Peter’s arms and holds them down as Peter works through it, then slumps back, head lolling, eyes dazed.

It’s not a sex thing, whatever this just was. They both have soft cocks, but that was so intense Stiles finds himself panting a little, watching Peter come back to himself. It’s not sex but Peter needed it. It’s like he didn’t want to look at something so hard that he knew it was going to hurt really horribly if he did, and he needed the company to stand it.

“If you don’t…you know, feel like you can, we can take care of the baby when it hatches out,” Stiles says, once Peter’s starting to focus again. He forgets sometimes that Peter’s really not that old. Him and Peter and Chris, they’re all pretty close together, even if the werewolves act so much older, with all the violence in their lives. And he’s seen and done things they haven’t ever gotten a chance to, whether that’s down to them being werewolves or to what’s happened to them. “That’s what flock’s for, for us. If you can’t do it, you can always find somebody else to help. I mean—I think you could help, but I don’t want to make you. And I know it’s not just about whether you want to.”

Peter stares at him for a while. When he finally raises a hand, it’s shaking, but it’s not the same tight tremble as before. It’s looser, definitely on the comedown side of things. “Stiles,” he says very softly, very stunned. “You’d…you’d let me…”

“I’d show you. I’d make sure you wouldn’t screw it up. You and Laura, and Chris, and even Derek and Cora,” Stiles says. “Look, whatever you did before, I’m not going to say it was good or bad. I wasn’t there, you can make up your own mind. But this thing where you all seem to think you’re just good for killing stuff and being terrible to each other, it’s just—you’re _not_.”

When he’s done, he stares into Peter’s eyes for a second. Just so he can check that the werewolf is actually listening to him. And then he sighs and he takes Peter’s head between his hands. He strokes his thumbs over Peter’s temples, then bends over and kisses him.

It’s just going to be a quick one, because if he bites Peter’s neck again, Peter’s going to go all dazed again and Stiles wants to reassure him without that. But Peter brings his arms up and just touches Stiles’ back. Very tentative but it stops Stiles with his mouth half-off Peter’s. He pauses, then sinks down again, and Peter carefully, like he’s cradling an egg, wraps his arms around Stiles.

They kiss again, and then a third time, and then Peter dips his head under Stiles’ chin and breathes slowly, raggedly against Stiles’ breast. He sounds exhausted, even though his arms are tightly locked over Stiles’ back. Stiles shifts over a bit, getting more comfortable, and then folds his arms over Peter’s head. And they just hold each other for a while.

* * *

Eventually Stiles and Peter have to come up for dinner. Laura, Stiles is pleased to see, is sitting on the den bed with Scott. On the edge, with him between her and the egg, but she’s there. And she might have been closer at some point, going by the goofy look on Scott’s face, and just moved off because she’s also playing knucklebones with Derek and Cora on the floor.

She certainly looks interested when Chris whistles and the egg taps back.

“After the first month, you can tell whether it’s too warm or too cold that way,” Scott says. He’s got the egg balanced on his coiled tail as he reaches down for his share of the food. “How fast it’s tapping. It gets really fast, it’s too hot. Really slow, or not at all, it’s too cold.”

“And they learn to recognize everybody’s voices that way, too,” Stiles adds. 

Peter’s still a little subdued so Stiles is half-sitting on him, and occasionally is stuffing a tidbit into Peter’s hand when the werewolf’s stopped eating for too long (he’s almost back to healthy weight, but not quite). That earned them a couple looks from Laura, but then Peter looked pointedly at Scott and raised his brows, and Laura had ignored him from then on.

Chris is a lot more subtle, and just makes sure he serves Stiles a bigger portion than usual. He’s already finished his meal, and leans over Stiles’ tail to whistle again. He’s getting a lot better at that, even if he can’t quite get the highest notes.

“They’ll learn them just from you talking to them, too. Or singing. My mom actually says that I sang back to her, the week before I hatched,” Scott says. Because he knows Laura loves singing.

“I don’t know about that,” Stiles mutters. Because he’s heard Scott’s so-called singing.

Scott flicks him a don’t spoil this, I think I got her look. Or, Scott tries to, but then he realizes that Derek and Cora aren’t playing on the floor anymore, and instead are peering over the edge of the bed at the egg. He grins at them, then unwraps his tail from it and gathers it up in his arms. “Here, listen,” he says. He whistles a food call and the egg clicks excitedly. “That’s a happy egg.”

Sometimes Scott is just pure mush. And yet, Stiles thinks, watching Laura watch him, it works for him.

“So will it remember its parents?” Cora asks. She pauses, looking a little wary. “Because you said it knows our voices.”

And sometimes Scott is a lot stronger than people would think, seeing him go all mushy. He bites his lip a little, then shrugs. “Maybe, I don’t know. I’m not sure how old it is. My mom says that my father talked to me all the time, but I don’t remember—he left before I hatched. I don’t remember that.”

Laura’s slowly reaching out for Cora, but like the girl has eyes in the back of her head, she suddenly jumps up onto the bed with Scott. “Was he mad at you?” Cora says.

“No, he was just an ass—he was a terrible sphinx,” Stiles says, before Scott has to. Not that Scott will, because he’s like that, but somebody needs to. “He’s not flock. You ever see a sphinx with three black bars on his wings here—” he points to Scott’s wings “—you get me. Because he’s not flock, and he’s not allowed to be flock.”

Scott looks both relieved and disapproving. “Seriously, Stiles.”

“Seriously. I don’t know why you and Melissa even let him back in the first time,” Stiles mutters. He gets up and works out a kink in his leg, and then sits back down. “I can forgive a lot of stuff, but not running off on a nesting mate.”

“Stiles,” Scott says, and then pauses. “Stiles. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

He’s eyeing Laura, who’s gone tight-lipped, even as she finally scoops up Cora and plops her back down beside Derek. “Even we never got that bad,” she mutters, with a quick look at Peter.

Who nods in agreement, even as he shifts a little closer to Stiles. “So if a sphinx female mated with a non-sphinx, would she still lay eggs?” Peter asks.

Being nice, and changing the subject to something that will also catch Laura’s attention. Stiles rewards him with a lick at a little blood that’s smeared over his jaw, then nuzzles the side of his head while reaching for a last piece of meat. “Yeah. So Erica gets that mammoth for Boyd, she’d lay eggs. And they’d hatch out sphinxes, but they’d probably get some of his coloring.”

“They might get some of his build, too,” Scott chimes in. “I’ve got cousins that are half selkie, and they don’t have the same tail at all, it’s flatter and thicker, and doesn’t have the tuft. And they have webbed feet and hands.”

The werewolves stare at him, and then perform varying degrees of trying to pretend they weren’t, from Chris (eating food he really doesn’t want to eat) to Peter (not bothering). “Not to be rude, but…how does that work?” Laura asks.

Scott doesn’t look offended. Scott does, however, look a little pink. “Um. Well. Not that I watched…much, shut up, Stiles. But it’s not that different from if you do it with—with anybody who doesn’t have wings. You, I mean the sphinx, does the mating flight, and then you go down to your partner. And selkies don’t have sex underwater.”

“Well, they don’t _have_ to,” Stiles says, grinning.

“Do we have to talk about this either?” Scott mutters. And looks at the kids, because even he’s not above a cheap shot.

“Sex? Are we talking about sex? My favorite subject!” Erica says, bouncing in.

It’s time to change shifts, although Scott’s also living in the den so he’s just going to take a break, and then Stiles assumes he’ll be right back here, napping while Erica minds the egg. But dinner’s pretty much over with, too, so it’s good timing. Scott can flee with Laura—or gallantly offer to help take out the bones and other inedible bits, depending on your point of view—and the kids will follow his waving, awesome tease-toy of a tail.

Peter and Chris need to wash up, so they head for the stream—whenever it does get warm, the first thing they’re doing is drilling the well—and Stiles pops out for a breath of air before he heads for his cave.

“Oh, hey,” Isaac says. His wings are half-mantled, but he lowers them as he recognizes Stiles. “Sorry.”

“Hey. Hey, somebody brought you dinner, right?” Stiles says. “And showed you around?”

Danny had found a couple of giant pines fallen against each other, which could be braced up to support a nest with a little work, and Scott had offered the root-cellar idea. Stiles hadn’t heard which Isaac went with, but he’s assuming the root-cellar since Isaac’s still here.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. I just slept all day, don’t need to do that now,” Isaac says. He pauses, but when Stiles doesn’t say anything else, he settles back where he was. Right at the highest part of the foundation, with a little bit of a bear fur sticking out from under him, like he might just opt for no roof at all.

Well, it doesn’t smell like rain. And they did offer. And honestly, Stiles figures that whatever happened to Isaac, he seems together enough to decide where he’s comfortable. If Scott wants to tackle him on it, Scott can, but Stiles is of the mind that Isaac can prioritize which problems he wants to deal with first.

“Stiles?” Isaac says, just as Stiles is turning back inside. “So…Scott said I could stay for a while. See if we want to flock up.”

“If you want,” Stiles says. He pauses, then decides Isaac would probably appreciate blunt honesty more than polite dancing around. The sphinx is quiet, but he’s got that kind of direct air around him. “If this works for everybody, and you don’t cause trouble with anyone. We have some, um, different things—”

“Yeah, he mentioned the werewolves.” Isaac shrugs. “I talked to what’s his name, Chris. He said you’re their leader, too?”

Stiles nods. Because yeah, he is. It’s kind of more complicated than that, but at the end of the day…yeah.

“I think we can get along,” Isaac says. He looks a little diffident, a little wary. And maybe a little hopeful. “I don’t really want to bother anybody, if that matters. You don’t have to see much of me.”

“If Scott thinks you’re friends, I don’t know about that,” Stiles mutters. He glimpses a quick smile on Isaac’s face and starts to feel a little better. Those who appreciate that part of Scott tend to be good ones. “Yeah, well, let’s just see. You can definitely stay till it’s warm enough that you don’t have to worry about your wings icing over, anyway.”

“Great.” Isaac lies back, then raises himself again. “Hey. Stiles. Thanks.”

Stiles flips a hand at him in acknowledgment, then heads back inside. Stops to gossip with Erica some, because she is _all over_ the idea of Scott and Laura. And also, for some reason, thinking he’s got the goods on Isaac. He’s not sure if she’s thinking of adding Isaac to her list, or just has some gruesome curiosity about Isaac’s snake encounters, but he has no shame at all about deflecting her to Scott, whenever he gets back. Erica was Stiles’ friend first, and he does his duty respecting the rest of the flock by warning her Scott has wibbly protective feelings she’d better take into account. So Scott can deal with giving Isaac the Erica rundown.

The talk with Erica doesn’t take that long, and neither did the one with Isaac, but when Stiles gets into his cave, he finds that Peter and Chris have beaten him there. They’ve got the furs plumped up and the screen pulled across the entrance, and the lanterns lit. And more house blueprints out.

“We were just talking about how to snake-proof the place,” Peter says as Stiles flops down beside them.

“I know I said we shouldn’t get big ones up here, but then I remembered about the summer fairs,” Chris mutters. He’s scribbling what looks like some kind of pit trap on a piece of paper. “Sometimes there’s a traveling zoo. I don’t think I’ve seen a seps or anything that might be a diamond snake, but I know one year there was an amphisbaena.”

“Those don’t get big enough, but I see your point,” Stiles says. And he does, even if he doesn’t really want to end up arguing about the merits of skylight doors versus very large windows again. The stupid town is going to end up liking them just for how many hides and precious ore and medicines they’ll have to bring in to pay for the house. “Scott brought up some of my sphinx history books this time, remind me to get you the one on the serpent year.”

Peter pushes aside his papers and moves over to curl along Stiles’ hindlegs, with his head cradled in the dip of Stiles’ waist. “That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“It was way before my time, thankfully.” Stiles slides off his arms and lies down on his side, reaching down to comb his fingers through Peter’s hair. “I’ve got a sphinx anatomy book somewhere, too. It was written by humans so it’s mostly wrong, but I keep it around for giggles. I should show you the chapter on reproduction.”

Chris snorts, half his mouth turning up. He finishes his sketch and looks around like he’s deciding what to work on next. Then glances at Stiles. Then looks at the papers again, and after a moment, carefully shuffles them all into a leather case that he then sets aside. He crawls over to Stiles and goes all the way down onto his belly, since he’s coming from behind. Presses his cheek against Stiles’ back, over one shoulderblade, and then, when Stiles lifts his head, eels under it so that he rubs Stiles’ cheek straight down his body.

When he’s just got his knee under Stiles’ head, he twists around so that he’s facing Stiles and Peter. “About mating flights,” he starts. His eyes flick to Peter and there’s just the faintest glint of humor in them, while the rest of his face is perfectly serious. “They’re just for controlling your own fertility, right? So if you flew one, you couldn’t cause us to have babies?”

Stiles snorts hard, up the wrong way, and then coughs. He stares at Chris and Chris just flicks his eyes to Peter again; Peter bridles and then shrugs with elaborate nonchalance. “It was a thought experiment,” Peter says. “I was just working through all the possibilities. Chris.”

“Uh.” Stiles coughs again. “Uh, no. I mean. Unless you’ve been hiding something from me, and male werewolves are already capable of getting pregnant.”

Peter laughs, then shakes his head. He moves it off Stiles, but keeps the back of it pressed to Stiles’ belly. He’s also careful to not dislodge Stiles’ petting hand. “No. No, we can’t. Although our heats…normally it’s only the alpha pair who has children, but betas still have heats in case that doesn’t go as planned. So in a sense, I suppose we’re still preparing to serve as back-ups.”

He gets a little careful at the end, looking up at Stiles. Who suddenly remembers Peter telling Laura that Talia needed a spare, that’s why Laura got to live. “You mean you have heats but you don’t get fertile unless the alpha pair can’t,” Stiles says. He can’t quite bring himself to really ask it like a real question. “Or something else.”

“The first one,” Peter says immediately, looking regretful. He rubs his head up into Stiles’ hand, till it’s slid back onto his neck, and then he whines a little. “I’m sorry. I keep—we’re _trying_ to not make you think we’re all barbarians—”

“It’s not like sphinxes are all awesome, either,” Stiles sighs. He scratches at the side of Peter’s neck, then wraps his fingers over Peter’s nape, squeezing lightly. “I mean, Scott’s dad. I’d like to say that that never happens, but…this whole thing where we’ll take care of each other’s eggs, well, you do get assholes taking advantage of that. Although it is rare that they _completely_ disappear.”

Peter nods tightly, but he’s calming down, settling in the furs. So that one is over, and Stiles is thinking that mating’s a bad subject after all, when Chris clears his throat. And earns himself a sharp warning look from Peter, which Chris stiffly ignores.

“Sorry, I just—we were wondering,” Chris says. He takes a deep breath. Stutters it a little when Stiles reaches out and rubs his neck, too, eyes widening slightly, and then he sets his shoulders. “Did you—did you want children? Of your own? Because—it might—because you’re not an actual alpha werewolf—when we’re in heat, we probably could—”

“If you’re…offering to go court another werewolf, or a sphinx or whatever, for me, I’m—no. I don’t want you to do that. I’m fine. We’re fine. I don’t—do alphas make you do that? Is that what you mean?” Stiles says. He pushes himself up, even though that makes them both flatten, makes them cringe a little and stare worriedly up at him. Because honestly, even with all the trying to understand in the world, he sometimes really just wants to punch out alpha werewolves.

Well, Laura aside, but he’s pretty sure she’s decided to ignore everything she’s seen or been taught or heard about alpha werewolves for the same reason.

“Nope. Definitely not,” Stiles says, making himself take a deep breath.

He lies back down and they immediately crowd up against him, baring their throats. Stiles nuzzles and croons, and then elbows himself a little room so he can shift out his wings, and with those covering them, Peter and Chris finally calm down.

“I mean. Kids. I don’t know, maybe later. But sphinxes just…you don’t _have_ to go through the whole egg-laying thing to feel like the kid’s yours, you know. Scott and I have totally different parents but we’re brothers—we think of ourselves as brothers, because my dad spent so much time helping his mom out when her mate abandoned her,” Stiles says. Then he wrinkles his nose. “Which is why I don’t get why everybody thinks we’d doing it, by the way.”

“Alphas don’t do that to their betas,” Peter says after a long pause. He tucks his head more securely against Stiles’ shoulder. “Well, sane ones who want to stay alphas don’t. We _do_ have our limits, Stiles, and that sort of behavior does destroy packs. We just…we were talking about offering, just in case. Because it’s something we can do for you, if you’d like that.”

“Well, answer’s no.” Stiles hooks his arm around Chris, who’s been looking like he wishes he could cut his throat over his question, and nibbles at the back of his neck till he gets a return nuzzle. “Besides. Scott’s egg is technically my egg too. And your egg, if you want. And I’m guessing this is different for you, but you don’t need to have kids to be flock leader, you just need to be good at it. And you don’t just have to do everything I want, honestly. Don’t werewolf mates get a say?”

Peter goes so still that Stiles ends up shifting away his wings and pushing up again, and rolling the werewolf over, because he wants to make sure Peter’s still breathing. Chris doesn’t look too good either, although he at least is together enough to hold himself up on his arms.

“What?” Stiles says.

“We’re…we’re mates?” Peter says, like he doesn’t know what the word means.

Stiles pauses and checks, but nope, he still knows English. He almost tries Latin anyway. “Um, yes? Unless I’m getting this wrong too? I mean, I think you are, but—”

“Oh, no. No, no, no no no, please, please, I think that, I want that. I want that so—” Peter’s eyes light up and he twists up on his elbows, in such a rush that Stiles instinctively grabs at him. He barely notices, straining against Stiles’ grip to purr and nuzzle so fervently at Stiles’ throat that it takes _two_ nips to get him to stop. Even then, he’s purring so hard that he can’t manage to talk, though his lips are moving like he’s trying.

So Stiles just ends up cuddling him, pressing Peter’s head into his shoulder while the werewolf tries to get hold of himself. He remembers about Chris and looks over, and Chris is breathing very slowly and very levelly. Very unnaturally, and Stiles is about to try and reach over and shake him when Chris abruptly jerks up. He slides over the couple inches, then slots his head in on the other side of Stiles’ neck. When Stiles bites his throat, he shivers and then his head drops slackly off Stiles’ shoulder.

Alarmed, Stiles snatches at him, but Chris doesn’t smash into the floor. He catches himself in time, then pillows his head on Stiles’ knee, purring quietly. When Stiles does touch him, Chris twists slightly and grabs Stiles’ hand. Looks up, eyes shining, and then presses Stiles’ fingertips to his mouth.

“Sorry, sorry.” Peter finally can talk again. He moves his head off so that they can look at each other, but he keeps sliding his hands through Stiles’ hindfur. It’s really ticklish but Peter does it like he can’t quite believe Stiles is real, so Stiles swallows the snicker. “It’s just—I haven’t even had a _heat_. And no, we weren’t lying, heat doesn’t mean mate, but you aren’t that if you haven’t been through one together. And I just didn’t—we didn’t want to think…”

“We didn’t want to assume. Or ask,” Chris says quietly. He’s still holding onto Stiles’ hand. “In case the answer wasn’t…”

“Oh,” is just about all Stiles can say. He bites his lip a little, then pulls back. Just so that he can lie down again, and he licks whatever’s within reach once he’s comfortable, making sure they don’t flip out on him again. “Um. So I wasn’t holding back or anything, I just thought…well, we have a lot of sex. And we share a cave and food and books, I thought that was kind of universal.”

Peter’s still so happy it’s painful to look at, he’s so naked about it, but he manages to look amused for a second. “But flock shares, you told us.”

“I also said we didn’t share everything, but—yeah. Fair point.” Stiles leans over and kisses Peter, and the werewolf shudders into it, then kisses fiercely back. His hands grip almost too tightly in Stiles’ hindfur. Then loosen and drop as he curls up next to Stiles, purring into Stiles’ chest. “But for the record, I don’t share my books with just anyone. And I warned everybody off you, and Lydia was…well, I think she was teasing, but she was definitely looking you over. And that’s how you tell with sph—with me, anyway.”

Chris makes a half-hearted acknowledging noise, kissing Stiles’ wrist. He nuzzles his way up Stiles’ arm, then sighs contently as Stiles loops that over him and starts running fingers through his hair. Now that they’re all down, he and Peter look exhausted. Happy, but exhausted. Stiles…doesn’t really want to think about how long they were confused about that one, and just laps at one nape, then another.

“So no mating flight in the fall?” Peter eventually murmurs.

Stiles looks up from where he’s nibbling on Chris’ hairline, then snorts. “You must be better, if you’re making fun again.”

“I’m not mocking,” Peter says. He idly bats at Stiles’ tail as it brushes over his hip, then rolls over onto his belly, chin resting on his folded hands. “It might not be necessary for us, but I’m curious.”

“You’re dreaming,” Chris mutters. He shifts under Stiles, then looks up in protest as Stiles switches over to Peter. “Dreaming a lot, and then telling me about it when we’re supposed to be building a basement.”

Peter arches his shoulders as Stiles licks along one, then makes a throaty, inviting, totally unconcerned noise. “A little dreaming never hurt anyone, Chris. You could stand to try it, it might help with that temper of yours.”

Stiles scratches a thumbnail along Peter’s throat, then rolls his eyes as Peter just purrs at him. “What are you talking about?” he finally says.

“Mating,” Peter half-rolls onto his side, looking up at Stiles. He’s a little nervous, not sure how Stiles will take this, but he seems a lot…less fearful about it. He’s just not sure, and not also terrified. “Just talking about how it might go if it was properly done, since we didn’t have time when Chris’ heat came up. I was thinking…it might be a little like a hunt.”

Chris snorts. He’s heard this before, but he doesn’t seem in any hurry to stop Peter. If anything, he looks like he might be…waiting for it?

“Just thinking. That you’d follow one of us around through the woods. Up in the air, so we wouldn’t notice for a while, and then we would, and you’d really run us out,” Peter says. He’s getting a little—his voice is dropping, getting lower and slower as he watches Stiles and Stiles doesn’t do anything. He rolls his shoulders back into the furs, stretching his throat out, his hands coming up to rest lightly on Stiles’ hips. “Chase us till we’re too tired, and we just drop. And you can just…scoop us up.”

“This is a very detailed dream,” Stiles observes. Not that he’s objecting.

Peter grins at him. “Well, the best ones are.”

And then keeps grinning, till Stiles gets impatient and pokes him. Which is exactly what Peter was looking for, smug bastard. “Fine, I pick up your limp, sweaty, floppy body. Then what?”

“I don’t think we need _that_ sort of detail,” Peter says, sighing. He hikes his chin up as Stiles snorts and lightly kisses his jaw. “Well…there’s a cave. With furs, and flannel blankets, so you don’t have to stop to complain about the weather.”

Stiles glares at him, and does not look at the flannel blanket tucked around under them. “And?”

“And then you have us,” Peter says. He lifts his head just enough to lip at Stiles’ chin when he talks. “You ride our heat. You have us as many times as our heat can stand, you don’t let us out of bed because you don’t want to waste a second of it. Sometimes we go to sleep with you in us, and when we wake up, we’re still on your cock. It’s like we’re molded to it.”

“You’re a very, very bad werewolf,” Stiles says, and then has to kiss him. Hard. Holding his hips down, both with hands and with plain body weight. “But seriously? That’s what you think about?”

“It’s not just that,” Chris says. He’s slid over to lean against them, his hand dipping between their legs to tease at the slight erections they’re both starting to get. And his cock’s hardening as he presses it against Stiles’ thigh, sifting it into the fur there. “But yeah. Yeah, a little—yeah.”

“It’s different with you.” Peter’s serious for a second, dead serious, even as his breath quickens. “You should see—I wish you could see, Stiles. Anyone else, I’d hate it, I’d break pack and run and take my chances, but you, I want it more than anything.”

Chris laughs lowly, and nuzzles into Stiles’ shoulder as Stiles can’t help a shiver himself. “So this cave, sometimes we’re tied up, too.”

“No, no, it’s not—it’s you,” Peter says, as Stiles starts. He kisses at the edges of Stiles’ lips, making a low, soothing noise Stiles has only heard him use once, when Derek had an especially bad nightmare. “Because it’s you. It’s you, it doesn’t mean the same. It’s just that you don’t want us to have to do anything, anything, just to feel how good it is. You do everything, you take care of everything, and it’s so good, Stiles, because it’s you.”

So nobody’s in heat. But after that, honestly, they might as well be. Stiles barely remembers about oil, and stretching, and for all the help that Peter and Chris are, they seem to want to test out just how good werewolf healing is. Yeah, he’d better take care of it, Stiles thinks muzzily at one point. And then Peter twists on his fingers, enough slick coming out now to wet his hand, and Chris moans into his mouth, and he stops thinking.

They ruin that flannel blanket. “We bought three bolts, we can make more,” Chris grunts sleepily, noticing Stiles poking at a stain.

Stiles sighs, then laughs. He laps at some drying sweat on Peter’s back, then pulls the werewolf more closely to him, feeling Peter twitch and close down around his softened cock. It feels weird, keeping it in so long, but…not that bad a weird, he decides. Not bad at all. He could get used to this.

“This is the whole knotting thing, isn’t it?” he says. He rolls himself and Peter onto their sides, then reaches under the werewolf’s leg and gropes around till his hand runs into Chris’ cock. Limp against Peter’s thigh, though when Stiles wraps his fingers around it, Chris groans like it’s fully hard.

And Peter mewls like it’s _his_ cock, mewls and hitches himself a little deeper onto Stiles’ cock. “Maybe,” he says coyly. His eyes close when Stiles tugs Chris’ cock between his thighs, getting the two of them flush. “Oh, yes, fine. We’re werewolves.”

“So I tie you up,” Stiles says, after a few seconds of contented snuggling.

“A little,” Peter says. His head moves like he’s going to turn it, and then he’s too tired for that, and just pushes it against Stiles’ jaw. “It’s just so we don’t try to do anything distracting, Stiles. Just our hands, maybe. In front of us, so we can still touch you, if you want, but we can’t touch ourselves. Wouldn’t want our heat to end too early.”

Stiles nips him behind the ear, hard, and as much as that’s not usually a spot for him, Peter whimpers breathlessly. “I thought it was so you couldn’t leave. I don’t think it’d work for that.”

“Sometimes,” Chris says. He’s doing something to make Peter shiver on Stiles’ cock—playing with Peter’s nipples. He stops when Stiles squeezes his cock, then starts again when Stiles just swipes his thumb over its head. “Maybe you tied our ankles together. We’d never leave, he’d never go where I want him to.”

“Because you’d always pick the difficult way,” Peter murmurs, kissing Chris lazily.

“A _lot_ of details to work out,” Stiles says. He snuggles his head against Peter’s nape. Breathes in his mate’s scent, then grins. “Good thing it’s not till fall, then. Got enough time to fit in a few trial flights.”

Peter’s head goes up. “Really?”

“If you’re good,” Stiles says. He sucks a little at the back of Peter’s neck, then moves over to do the same to the side. Brings his arm up and around to pet Chris’ throat, too. “Though honestly, even if you’re bad…or if you just don’t know, or if it’s weird to you. I’m still staying. You know that, right?”

“We know,” Chris says slowly. Tentative, but still, just under that, just coming to enjoy it.

Peter just puts his head back down, his nape under Stiles’ mouth. He hisses a little as Stiles finally pulls out of him, but then sighs and presses back, as satisfied with that as he’d been before. Content, Stiles curls up with them and goes to sleep.

* * *

Derek looks suspiciously at the egg. “I thought it was Laura’s turn,” he says.

“She and Scott went to go…get some water,” Stiles says, looking up from his book. He catches Peter’s eye and wills him to do something. Not because he couldn’t think of a lie, but because he’s just gotten to the really good part of this surprisingly trashy book of southern romances, and he doesn’t want to lose track of who’s been whose mistress.

Peter rolls his eyes, but obligingly takes the rack of dried fish off his shoulder, and puts it on Derek’s. “Go hang them up with the rest, and _don’t_ just put any you drop back on the rod,” he says. “We’ll see the dirt, Derek.”

Scowling, Derek looks at the fish. He zeroes in on a spot, flicks off a speck of dirt while looking up at an amused Peter, and then stalks off.

“Water,” Peter says, once Derek’s left.

“I try not to ask questions I don’t want to know the answer to,” Stiles says, back to his book.

Footsteps pad quietly around the bed, picking up odds and ends; Cora and Erica were romping around during the previous shift, and they totally hadn’t done anything about the mess before leaving. Stiles had tried to tidy up, but admittedly had been a bit distracted, what with needling Scott. You’d think after a werewolf heat, and with Laura being a very loud howler, Scott would get less embarrassed, but no. Nope. Not in the least.

But then the bed dips and Stiles looks up, frowning. He’s just surprised—Peter still keeps his distance from egg-warming, although he’s been very happy to get involved in anything else to do with it—and he tries to smooth out his face when Peter pauses.

Peter is a little tense around the shoulders, but he carefully picks his way across the bed. He keeps Stiles between himself and the egg, and doesn’t even look at it as he leans to read the book over Stiles’ shoulder. “That one? Really?”

“I like the love speeches,” Stiles says, and then smiles nicely when Peter’s eyes narrow. “Fine, no, but I’m impressed at how many it manages to squeeze in per page. I think this one character’s fallen in love five times in the same paragraph.”

Rolling his eyes, Peter stretches out and then puts his head down. He’s still tense and he gets back up after only a few seconds. Pauses, then shifts to wolf form and curls up by Stiles’ hip.

That seems to do the trick, and he’s mostly asleep when Chris comes in, wolfed out himself, and damp, for some reason. Then Stiles smells Lydia on him and looks sympathetically down. “Walked in on her before she’d preened, huh. So she screamed and you fell in the stream?”

Chris huffs disgustedly. He gives himself a quick drying shake, then climbs up onto the bed. Cocks his head upon seeing Peter, then does as close as a wolf can come to a shrug, settling himself so he can rest his head on the back of Stiles’ shoulder. He’s been less edgy about the egg than Peter, but he still hasn’t worked up to touching it either. But he does whistle to it a lot.

Speaking of. Stiles trills, then listens as the egg responds. The baby’s far enough along to chirp, and once he thought he heard a tiny sphinx roar. But today he just gets a muffled grunt. He tucks the furs a little more closely around it, then gives the top a light pat.

“No rush, kid,” he says. He turns the page, then pats the egg again. “Though just so you know, it’s pretty nice out here. I think you’ll like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sabertooth tigers, which are not direct ancestors of modern tigers, were very heavily-built, a lot more along the lines of a bear or hyena than a cat. There is actually evidence that sabertooth tigers lived in groups, but I don't think it's a stretch to assume young adults spent a certain period on their own, similar to how young male lions leave their birth prides and live on their own before winning their own pride. Also, I decided to keep Boyd in the feline family (although thank you to all the readers who provided suggestions) because I have this idea of the sphinx homeland as being like the African savannah, except with higher cliffs in between the plains, where you have multiple feline species coexisting/competing like lions and cheetahs and leopards all do today.
> 
> I have werewolves not being able to fully understand sphinx roars because cats (and birds) both can hear in frequencies that canines can’t. 
> 
> Banshees in this 'verse are birdpeople. Which I think is justified, as originally, banshees derive from the Morrigan, who was closely associated with ravens.
> 
> Titanoboas are real extinct animals but I give them some mythical traits here, like being able to bust through rock and armor themselves with diamonds. Seps are completely mythical snakes from medieval bestiaries, which supposedly had extremely corrosive poison.
> 
> ...I am way too invested in inventing reproductive cycles for mythical animals, but the idea of sphinx fertility control is based on temperature. They're from a hot climate and they run hot (as most flyers do, because you need a high metabolism to generate the energy for flight), so default, their bodies are too warm to be fertile. They need to go on a long mating flight high into the cold air in order to cool down enough. And I admit that this is kind of cribbed from memories of reading Mercedes Lackey's gryphon books. The idea of regulating egg temperature is taken from alligators, who heap up rotting material or take it off their nests in order to warm up/cool down their eggs. And the idea that babies learn family voices while in the egg is from real bird behavior.
> 
> In real wolf packs, the alpha pair is generally the only one who breeds, although the rest of the pack often engages in non-reproducing sexual behavior during heats. And sometimes non-alpha members will also breed, if resources are plentiful enough.
> 
> The egg is a girl. Name TBD.


	12. Post-fic: Peter's Erotic Fairytale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter tells his mates a little fairytale starring, of course, a handsome but incurably curious young werewolf who goes exploring.

Once upon a time there was a young werewolf. He was smart, and clever, and also very handsome, with dark, curling hair and blue eyes. And, admittedly, insatiably curious with a strong perverse streak. If he was told to do one thing, he never could pass up the chance to do the exact opposite, just to see what would happen.

The werewolf lived in a deep, dense woods with his pack. It was full of game and streams, and all the things that werewolves need, and so life was very easy for them. But there was one valley in the woods where the werewolves didn’t go.

“Because a monster lives there,” the alpha said upon being asked. “A huge, winged monster who will eat you alive. So you can’t go there.”

Well, obviously the werewolf went.

The day that the werewolf entered the monster’s valley, the sun was shining and the sky was clear, and a light, fresh breeze was blowing, carrying rich scents of elk and deer and boar to his nose. Flowers were blooming, and the streams were flush with cool mountain water and fat fish. It was beautiful, the monster’s valley.

The werewolf was curious but not stupid. As he crept over the edge of the valley, he kept his ears pricked and lifted his nose into the breeze to catch any unfamiliar scent, and he looked every which way before he took a step. He kept very quiet, staying in the shadows and slinking through the brush, and as he was a very skilled werewolf, he passed groups of deer and other animals, which normally would flee at the slightest sign of a werewolf, who didn’t notice a hair on his pelt.

But as the werewolf went on, he saw nothing but a pretty, sun-dappled forest, with burbling creeks and lush-leaved trees. He gradually began to step a little louder, carry his head a little higher, and still, nothing happened.

“I don’t think there’s a monster at all,” the werewolf said upon reaching the bottom of the valley.

He was glad to not be eaten, of course, but a tiny part of him was disappointed that the legend wasn’t true. He’d thought there would be _something_.

So the werewolf sighed, and looked over the lovely little clearing he was sitting in, and then he got up to go home and tell all the others the truth. And something happened to catch his eye.

It was a small black dot in the sky, barely anything. He blinked and the dot didn’t disappear, so that was how he knew it wasn’t just a mote in his eye. In fact, the werewolf thought as he peered up, the dot seemed to be moving closer.

A bird, he guessed. The dot rose as the breeze did, and continued to grow. He saw wings, two thin lines extending from either side of the dot. The werewolf shook off some plant fluff that had stuck to him and sat back on his haunches, frowning, trying to see what kind of bird it was, and the dot grew a long, skinny tail that coiled and looped back on itself, like no bird he’d ever seen. And then muscular back legs tipped with long claws, and _arms_. Arms like a human’s, with hands that also had long, gripping claws. Claws that were spread out to grab him.

Snarling, the werewolf dove aside just as the monster swooped down at him. Hot air scorched over the back of his neck, sending him crashing into the underbrush as he avoided another grab by the monster—it was quick and agile, and seemed like it could spin on a needle’s point to come at him. And it was roaring, a thunderous, rattling sound that seemed to crash into the very roof of the sky.

The werewolf was quite honestly terrified. He forgot all about being curious and he bolted back into the trees. But he wasn’t safe there. Every time he looked up, the monster was over him, wheeling and roaring, and when he tried to stop, it would fold in its wings and dive impossibly fast between the trees.

So the werewolf had to keep running. He ran till his feet were blistered, his ribs all but cracked from panting hard, and still, the monster chased him. He ran and he ran and he ran, and he forced himself to keep running right up to the valley entrance. And there, just as he leaped for the path home, the monster caught him.

Of course the werewolf wasn’t a deer, or anything helpless like that. He had his own claws and fangs, and he’d been in fights before. But the monster was so much stronger than he was, with those fearsome wings that bashed off thick tree limbs as he watched, and it pinned him to the ground without so much as a huff of effort.

The werewolf struggled, but it wasn’t any use. He was firmly stuck under the monster, each limb caught in a tight, clawed grip and spread wide so that his unprotected belly and throat had to face the monster’s fanged mouth. And the monster—

—the monster had a lovely face, the werewolf suddenly realized, looking up at it. The monster had a human’s face, a youth’s face, delicately handsome, with a plush lower lip that it chewed on as it peered down at him.

“What are you?” it asked him.

“A werewolf,” he said. Gasping a little, because the monster was heavy, for all that its body under the wings was slim and well-shaped. “Are you going to eat me?”

The monster tilted its head, frowning, and the werewolf started to hope that perhaps he could reason with it. But then it bent close again, a hungry grin spreading over its face.

“I think I will,” it said, sniffing at him. “Because you smell _delicious_.”

And it did. It held the poor werewolf down and it tasted every inch of him, licking him over with a long, flat, strange tongue that was rough almost like grit one way, silken-smooth the other. The werewolf cried out, rasped and then soothed, but the monster only licked him more. It worked down from his throat over his chest to his nipples, and then spent a very long time there, very curious about how they firmed and turned from brown to dusky pink under its attentions.

The werewolf struggled against the monster’s grip, because he was afraid of what it might do, with its long, sharp fangs, much longer than his own. But he wasn’t able to break the monster’s grip and so he had to just lie there as the monster teased each nipple to tender, reddened swells, curling that tongue around them and then nipping at the tips. He ached very much, like his unfortunate nipples had been replaced with tiny hot coals that burned and stretched every time he took a breath.

And he was panting again, even though he couldn’t move, panting and whimpering as the monster’s tongue tortured all his sensitive spots. When it’d had its fill of his nipples, it moved down to his belly, laving along each muscle in an almost loving way, except for how it tickled so badly that the werewolf couldn’t help whimpering. And then the monster dipped farther, to the werewolf’s cock.

With all that the werewolf had been subjected to, it was no surprise that his cock had flushed and risen rigidly out from his groin. A small amount of precome had even welled out of the slit at the top, the werewolf was a little horrified to see.

The monster sniffed at it, breath unbearably hot against the werewolf’s sensitive cock head, and then gave the werewolf a very pleased smile. “Yes, definitely delicious,” it said, and then it licked him there.

It lapped up all the precome and then it massaged his cock head with its tongue and lips to draw out more. The werewolf continued to cry out, and to fight, but he was tired now, tired and weak. And he was full of very strange feelings, his skin all tight and prickling, his blood seeming hotter and hotter, till he felt like he was boiling from the inside. He didn’t like it very much, and then he did, and it was very confusing.

And the monster didn’t help. It was merciless, the monster, not allowing him a moment to think or to even catch his breath. It licked and sucked at his cock, running its tongue up and down his length for every little drop of precome, till the werewolf, gasping, came roughly into the monster’s mouth, body arched till all the bones in his spine had popped.

Then the werewolf slumped back, feeling like he’d just been killed, but the monster wouldn’t stop even then. It kept licking at his cock, working over the very sensitive skin, ignoring his pleas to stop. The monster licked up all his come and then it kept going, laving all around his groin and down over his soft, tender balls, rasping him with its tongue till he sobbed and begged the monster for mercy. He tried to squeeze his thighs together, realizing where the monster was going, but the monster’s grip was too strong and it held his legs firmly apart as that tongue dove into his most private places.

“So tasty, so sweet,” the monster murmured, nuzzling at the thin, very thin skin of his inner thighs so the werewolf trembled. 

It pressed its mouth deep between his buttocks, where no one else had been so far, no one and nothing except the werewolf’s fingers, and it licked him wide open with its tongue. It probed and thrust its tongue high into him, further than his fingers had ever gone, till the werewolf could feel that strong, relentless tongue working within his body, laving deep and hard, rough side making him mewl, silken side drawing out endless shudders. It made him slick. He could feel his body changing, so overheated that he thought he might be melting, staring at the monster’s wings arching over him. Changing and making him slick inside, welcoming the monster’s tongue even as he sobbed and whimpered, twisting his buttocks against the monster’s mouth.

The monster licked and licked and licked, until the werewolf’s cock had swelled a second time, his balls pulled up tight and heavy against his body, and then it licked some more. The werewolf came again, moaning, and the monster finally withdrew, but only to torture his softened cock and emptied balls with a sucking mouth that made them twitch against his will, cleaning them thoroughly of his come.

“Well, well, well,” the monster said. “Werewolves are full of honey. Who knew?”

“Please,” the werewolf pleaded, though he could barely speak. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Of course not. You’d stop being so sweet.” The monster smiled at him and even the werewolf had to admit it was a very fair face, the monster had. “No, I think I’m going to take you home. And keep you, so I can have your honey whenever I like.”

And the monster did just that. It took the exhausted, shivering werewolf to its den, a cave high on a cliff where nothing without wings could reach. It washed the werewolf’s sweat and tears off, tsking as the werewolf whimpered at each touch, which seemed to burn deep into his bones no matter how light it was. And the touches were light, very light and careful, because the monster didn’t want to damage its newfound treasure.

“No, no, no,” the monster scolded, pulling the werewolf’s hands away from cupping protectively over his abused nipples. “Stop that, you’ll hurt yourself.”

The monster rummaged around in its belongings, because it had been at this a very long time and had collected a number of treasures in its cave, and then drew out a long piece of rope, which it used to tie the werewolf’s wrists together, and then to bind the werewolf’s arms to his sides. Then it tied the other end to a thick metal ring set in the cave floor, so that the werewolf could lie down but couldn’t reach up to his nipples, or down to his cock.

“But how am I supposed to eat?” the werewolf said desperately. “I’ll starve, and then you won’t have any honey.”

“Oh, I’ll feed you,” the monster said. 

And it went out and killed some deer, and then brought them back to the cave. It skinned and gutted the deer while the werewolf watched—the monster was very good at that, and werewolves appreciated such things, even as they ached all over from terrible monster tongues—and then it came and it curled up around the werewolf. It licked at the werewolf some more, till the werewolf had to open his mouth to whimper, and it popped the best pieces of the deer into the werewolf’s mouth.

When the werewolf was no longer hungry, the monster licked the blood off him and then wrapped around him, so that the werewolf could feel the monster’s furred legs rubbing up against the backs of his thighs. The monster’s arms were tightly locked around the werewolf’s waist, preventing any attempt at escape, but the werewolf had regained some strength after eating and he struggled a little anyway. Because the monster’s fur tickled, especially against his inner thighs.

But the more he struggled, the closer the monster drew them together. The monster’s fur brushed up between his legs, and then he felt it wisping against the back of his cock and balls, which were still so sensitive from the monster’s mouth. Whimpering, the werewolf twisted helplessly at the sensation, and the monster noticed. It reached down between the werewolf’s legs and picked up his cock, so that he groaned. And then it pushed past his cock and balls, fingers exploring further as he sobbed and shook, touching and stroking and petting around his slick-stained hole.

“You’re dripping honey again,” the monster said, purring into his nape. 

It rubbed its fingers hard around his hole, till the werewolf was mewling like a kitten, and then it gathered him up. Spread his thighs and pushed down his hips. The werewolf gasped, eyes widening, because now he could feel the monster’s cock pushing out from those furred legs, thick and long, and then the monster drew him down onto it. The werewolf arched in protest but the monster held him firmly, till he had taken all of the monster’s cock. It stretched him out, made him feel full and a little dizzy, and then the monster pushed something into his mouth and the werewolf didn’t know what to do except to suck at it.

“See,” the monster said, laughing. “See how sweet you are?”

The monster had taken up the slick from his hole on its fingers, and was feeding it to the werewolf. And the werewolf couldn’t help but suck it off, moaning, even as he could feel more slick coming out of him, squeezing out around the monster’s cock as the monster lazily fucked him. The monster fed him more of his own slick, rubbing it all over his mouth and jaw, and petted his sore nipples too, till he was begging the monster again. But begging it to not stop, to keep touching him, to touch his cock again, because it was hard and painful and he wanted to, needed to come.

So the monster did, and then it laid the werewolf down on a bed of furs so soft that his tender nipples and groin could almost take it without a whimper, and the monster fucked him till the monster’s come was mixing with his slick down his thighs. Then the monster licked him all over, cleaning him up, telling him how delicious his honey was, and after that, finally allowed the werewolf to sleep.

But in the morning, it started all over again. The monster pressed its tongue deep into the werewolf to get his slick started, eating it up till the werewolf woke sobbing, and then it pulled him onto its cock as they ate breakfast, the werewolf eating from the monster’s own fingers. It kept its tongue or its cock or its fingers in him at all times, to try and keep the slick going. And when the monster had to leave the cave for some reason, it pulled out another thing from its treasures: a long, cock-shaped piece of metal that it pushed into him so he’d curl up in the bedfurs, whining softly, tugging uselessly at his bound hands, till the monster came back.

With that kind of treatment, it wasn’t long before the werewolf was slick all the time. Even with the plug in, slick dripped out around it and smeared over his ass and thighs, so that the monster had to spend hours cleaning him up. Which it always did with its tongue, purring, careful but relentless.

“Don’t worry,” the monster told him as it fed him, bathed him, warmed him. Read books to him, told him tales of strange lands and stranger beasts. Fucked him, held his cock and balls afterward as he shuddered through the aftershocks. “I’ll take care of you, sweet werewolf.”

“I know,” the werewolf said sleepily, instinctively spreading his legs for the monster’s mouth. “You’ll eat me, I know.”

“Oh, yes, always,” the monster said, and the monster kept his word.

* * *

“That is really not going to help people understand sphinxes,” Stiles says breathlessly, nipping a half-hearted reproof at Peter’s nape. “Or scare them off.”

Peter somehow manages to look offended, even sprawled heavily over the furs, ass firmly seated on Stiles’ cock, head pillowed on Chris’ thighs, a little of Chris’ come still sticking to the corner of his mouth. “What do you mean? It’s clearly a cautionary tale.”

“Don’t go after sphinxes unless you want to be ravished senseless?” Chris says. “Yes, Peter. That is an excellent message to tell people. That will cut down on the number of curious omegas we have coming in.”

“Hmm. Well. Maybe the closing message could use a little work,” Peter murmurs. He bundles his face a little deeper in between Chris’ legs, curving his neck up as Stiles gives in and sucks lightly along the tendon. Peter purrs, nosing up behind Chris’ balls, and Chris moans and presses down. “Or perhaps I’ll just rework it as a bedtime story.”

Stiles bites Peter’s throat, then wraps his arms firmly over Peter’s, holding them to the werewolf’s sides. Shivering, whimpering, Peter makes an appropriately abashed dip of his head. And then he sighs, relaxing back as Stiles slides his hands down to close loosely around Peter’s own.

“No wonder Laura looked at you funny when you offered to read to the egg,” Stiles mutters.

“Don’t be silly, Stiles, there’s no point in wasting a good story like that on minds too young to appreciate it,” Peter says. “I was going to read it a little basic herbalry. If baby sphinxes are anything like baby werewolves, you can never start too early about what _not_ to stick in your mouth.”

Stiles snorts, but he hears that little uncertain undertone to Peter’s voice. He has to lift Peter’s head from Chris to do it, which makes him feel a bit guilty, but he cups Peter’s chin and gently tilts it so he can press a soft kiss to Peter’s mouth. And then he leans over Peter to suckle at Chris’ half-hard cock, to make it up to him.

“Better idea,” Stiles says, drawing back to puff at Chris’ cock head. “Yeah, save those _other_ stories for our bedtime.”

Peter smiles under him, then nuzzles at his jaw. Stiles kisses him again, then rolls their hips forward, so that Peter’s urged back to tending to Chris’ erection.

“I can’t be the only one telling them, I’ll run out,” Peter mumbles, licking and lapping. “Chris?”

“What? Oh, for—Peter, you—fuck.” Chris moans and arches as Peter mouths at his balls. His bleary gaze passes over Stiles, then comes back. Lingers, full of heat and affection, before Chris lets his shudder bow his head backwards, offering his throat even though Stiles can’t reach. “Get me _off_ first, you asshole, and then—fine, then maybe—if Stiles even wants to—”

“Oh, yeah, I want to,” Stiles laughs. He frees a hand from Peter and starts stroking Chris’ cock with it. “I’m kind of a monster like that, I guess, but I definitely want to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this actually, in very broad strokes, was one of the scenarios I initially considered and rejected for structuring a sphinx!Stiles fic around. Stiles was going to be hunting, and he'd catch a wolf and take it up to his nest, and almost skin it when presto! It's now a man. And he's never seen that before and he's fascinated. And of dubious morals, even with the cultural differences, and he keeps Peter around as a pet/living sex fetish.
> 
> I ended up dumping that because I got way too interested in the cultural differences part, and the above scenario was going to be all about the dubcon porn (parts of that dynamic ended up in my other series _Dead Men Tell No Tales_ anyway). But it lives on in this form because even though these are much kinder, gentler versions, Peter is always and forever full of kinky fantasies.


	13. Post-fic: Chris' Porny Bedtime Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Chris might not like the sound of his own voice so much, but he certainly isn't going to let Peter win all the applause.

Once there was a young hunter. He’d recently left his hometown, and wanted to make his own way in the world. However, his…family was well-known in the region, and so, if he wanted to stand on his name and not theirs, he had to travel very far away.

He could have gone south, and hired out as a guard to one of the many temples or bazaars. Or east, to the steppes, and pursued the fantastic beasts that lived on those high, dry plains. Or west to the ocean, where he’d heard that fishermen intermarried with selkies and mermaids, and visited the deep waters with their mates whenever they pleased. But instead he decided to go north into the mountains.

The hunter had a few reasons for his choice. It would be much harder for anyone to follow him that way, and he wished to be alone. And less was known about the north than anywhere else, so he had a better chance of doing something that no one else in his family had ever done, and he did have ambition. And lastly, because he had heard that the strangest beast of all lived to the north. In particular, in one valley, which had steep mountains all around so that it was very difficult to get into it, and almost impossible to leave. And he was curious, the hunter.

So the hunter headed for that valley. He traveled for days and days, through lands that had no roads into ones that had no people. He saw many odd things, and odder beasts. Sometimes he had to fight and kill them, but if he could, he simply avoided them. After all, there were no doctors to tend to his wounds if he was injured, and he also didn’t wish to waste time. He knew he had to get to the valley before the first snows closed the mountain passes.

Finally, one autumn day, the hunter reached the valley. It was a beautiful place, the woods still lush and green even though they had long since turned to reds and oranges and browns elsewhere. The air was fresh, and the water, cool and pure. 

The hunter was very skilled in what he did, so as he explored the valley he looked for signs of a beast that had never been described before. And he found a few: a strange, metal feather stuck into a tree trunk, scratch marks that went deep into the top of a boulder. A dead aurochs that had been cut up and bundled into its own hide, and then hung high from a tree, as neat as any hunter’s work.

At the last sign, the hunter decided he’d looked enough, and now was the time to wait. So he covered up his own tracks and found himself a good hiding place, downwind behind a thick bush, and he settled down for the beast’s return.

He didn’t have to wait long. Very soon, the branches rustled, and then an extraordinary beast dropped through them into the tree where the aurochs was hanging. It had the hindquarters of a great cat, the wings of a hawk—except that they were far wider and longer than any hawk alive—and the foreparts of a man. A man’s arms and shoulders and head, and at those the hunter was most astonished of all, because the beast was very young, perhaps not even as old as the hunter himself.

The beast could also talk. The hunter didn’t know the language, but the beast was clearly singing to itself as it untied the aurochs hide from the tree and slung the load of meat over its back. Then it took off again, winging its way towards a nearby cliff.

The hunter followed. He hadn’t missed the beast’s long claws and fangs, or the glint of metal in its wings, but he thought that if the beast was a young one of its kind, perhaps he might be able to outwit it. And certainly, to take such a unique beast would be something that would make the hunter’s name all around the world.

So he followed. He had to go by foot, so what took the beast a few minutes to do, took the hunter all day. He had to cross the woods and then scale a very, very rocky, very sheer cliff. Sharp rocks broke through the bottoms of his boots, and cut his hands, but the hunter persevered, and finally, just as night fell, he reached the beast’s lair.

The beast lived in a large cave in the side of the cliff. Soft, flickering light spilled out of the entrance so that the hunter had to creep forward on his belly, even though his clothes tore on the rough ground. Still, he was careful, for he could hear _two_ voices now.

“It hurts,” said a man’s voice, low and tired. “Please, it hurts.”

“Because you keep touching yourself when you shouldn’t,” said the beast’s voice. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to take care of you again.”

The hunter sneaked forward a little quicker, because he thought that the beast had captured some poor person and was torturing them. He drew out his best knife and hid it under his belly, and then cautiously looked over a rock.

And what he saw was the beast crouched next to a fire, over a naked man, shaking its head and tying the man’s wrists together. No, it was wrapping something over the man’s hands. It was putting thick leather mitts on them, its foot on the man’s back as he moaned and struggled weakly, and then it lashed the mitts together with a leather strap.

The man had obviously suffered from the beast’s attention. He couldn’t lift his head from the cave floor, he was so exhausted. And he had pink, chafed, tender-looking spots all over his body. From the rough rock, the hunter assumed, until the beast bent over and hungrily licked at the man’s chest. And then he saw that the beast’s tongue was so coarse that _it_ was what had left behind those flushed, raw patches on the man’s skin.

Whimpering, the man tried to curl up, but the beast forced him to spread for its cruel tongue. It slurped and sucked all along the man’s vulnerable throat, then moved down to nipples that were already puffy and deep red, like overripe berries stuck to the man’s pale skin. The man begged the beast to stop, but the beast tormented him, working over each nipple for so long that the hunter shivered in sympathy.

When the beast finally moved on, it grasped at the man’s thighs, spreading them, and the hunter held his breath upon seeing the beast’s mouth hover over the man’s cock, which stood stiffly out from the man’s groin, precome weeping out of its tip and dribbling down the rosy sides. But no, the beast didn’t touch that, although it smiled upon seeing how tortured the man was.

Instead it flipped the man over, onto his bound arms, and it began licking deep between his buttocks, squeezing the plump globes out of the way with its hands. The man sobbed and tried to crawl away, but the beast pulled him back, onto that rough tongue. Pink stripes began to spread out from its mouth over the man’s buttocks, and the hunter winced again, thinking about what that tongue must be doing to the man’s insides.

“Please,” the man cried softly. “Please.”

“Well, you want to eat, don’t you?” the beast said, lifting its head. It tsked at the man almost good-naturedly, then reached for something off to the side.

The beast picked up an odd oblong object, which gleamed silver in the firelight. One end tapered to a blunt tip, while the other had a rounded groove before flaring out to a flat bottom. When the man saw it, he shook his head and then sobbed even more.

“No, please,” he said, even as the beast pressed the object between his buttocks, working it deep into him. “Please, please, don’t leave.”

“I’ve got to hunt,” the beast said mildly, even as the hunter frowned in confusion. “And you, you drip so, sweet werewolf, and we can’t have that, can we. I might be gone for hours and you’ll drip the whole time, and all that honey will go to waste.”

A werewolf? The hunter stiffened, for werewolves were common where he had come from, and they were sneaky, untrustworthy, violent beasts.

But this werewolf, if that was what the man was, this one didn’t seem to have anything on his mind except whimpering and pleading with the beast to not leave. He had grown too weak to support himself on his arms and was sprawled on his belly, flinching at the touch of rock against his sore nipples and stiff cock, and when the beast picked him up again, he flopped in its arms like a rag doll.

“It hurts,” the werewolf said, whining and shifting on the beast’s knee. “It’s cold.”

“You’ll warm it,” the beast told him, and tied his arms to his sides with a wide leather strap that went just under his nipples.

The werewolf gasped and the hunter could see the strap rub up against those nipples, turning them even redder and more swollen. “It’s big,” the werewolf said.

The beast grinned, and used another strap to tie the werewolf’s ankles together. “I’m bigger.”

As a third strap tightened around the werewolf’s thighs, so that the end of that strange silver thing peeped out from between his buttocks, the werewolf moaned and rocked against the beast. “I’m full,” he said.

“Yes, yes, you are,” said the beast. It carried the werewolf over to a pile of furs and laid him down on his side, then nosed at the werewolf’s bound thighs, licking at their backs and then probing between them, tightly tied as they were. “All plugged up, my honey wolf, and still dripping anyway.”

“Please,” the werewolf begged him. “Please. At least touch me. Touch my cock, please.”

“When I come back. When I’m back with your meat, honey wolf, and then I’ll lick you all over. I’ll have to, you’ll be wet again, all sticky and lying in your own honey,” the beast said to him, smiling, with nips at the werewolf’s legs and ass and then long, laving strokes of its tongue. “I can fill you up but you always have more, don’t you?”

And then the beast stood up and prowled out of the cave, leaving the sobbing, rocking werewolf behind. It stopped on the ledge just outside, spread its wings, and then soared off into the night sky.

The hunter watched it disappear into the moon, and then continued to crouch where he was. He watched the werewolf sob himself into a daze, hitching body gradually going slack, and stayed where he was.

And, when all was finally quiet in the cave, the hunter rose from his hiding place. He’d seen that the beast kept many things in the back of the cave. Not just things for tying up werewolves, but books, luxurious furs, precious stones, even gold and silver coins.

There were so many treasures that the hunter didn’t know where to look first. He wasn’t a greedy man, didn’t care for treasure for its own sake, but he had been traveling on his own for quite a while, and his supplies were running low. And also he knew he’d have to take something to prove that he’d been here. He was no longer so sure that he could take the beast—it was so…strange, he didn’t even know where to start—but just by discovering it, he thought he might be able to convince people that he was a good enough hunter to be trusted.

The hunter was stooping to pick up a dusty-looking scroll when he heard a soft, startled noise. He whirled around and found the werewolf staring back at him with wide eyes.

“Who are you?” the werewolf said.

The hunter groped for his knife, then cursed under his breath as he realized that he’d forgotten it on the floor, in his hiding spot. He’d been too distracted by the beast. “A hunter.”

The werewolf’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of hunter?”

“Well, it doesn’t look like you need to worry about that,” the hunter said after a second. “You look already caught.”

“Very funny,” the werewolf said. His cock was still hard and dripping precome, and he was panting a little, wincing whenever the strap around his arms rubbed into his nipples, but he had a sharp intelligence in his eyes. “You’re certainly not a nice one, are you? Here I am, prisoner of a terrible monster, and you aren’t even going to help me, are you?”

“I’m not sure you are a prisoner,” the hunter said.

“I am. I am, and I’m hurting.” The werewolf breathed in deeply, then shivered as the straps bit into him. His cock bobbed and the head of it caught the firelight in a slick gleam. “I hurt so much, and you cruel hunter, you’re just going to stand there. Aren’t you.”

The hunter started to deny it, and then caught himself. Just in time, for there was something hypnotic about the werewolf, even bound and helpless as he was, with his inner thighs shining wetly, his nipples bobbing over the leather strap, and the hunter’s feet had started to move towards him.

“I think you’re trying to—” the hunter started.

And then the beast came back. In a fierce gust of wind, which knocked the hunter off his feet even before the beast seized him. 

The hunter cried out and tried to throw up his arms, but the beast already had hold of them. Long claws shredded what remained of his clothing, pawing at him till he was as naked as the werewolf. He felt steaming breath on his throat and braced himself, just as the beast licked him.

That tongue was as rough as it looked, scraping so first his skin went numb, and then it was afire with pins and needles. But it was soft, too, soft and warm the other way, soothing even as the hunter hissed in pain. And then it was rough again, before the hunter had finished his relieved sigh.

The beast worked him over, licking him this way and that, over his jaw and then behind his ears, till his head was spinning in confusion. He didn’t know whether he hurt or not. He tried to fight anyway, because he was a hunter, but the beast was heavy and its grip was like iron, and he only managed to bruise himself against its hold. And then the beast would lick at those spots, stretch to lave at his wrists, pinned to either side of his head, and then to his straining shoulders, as if it could sense where was the most likely to make him more confused.

“And what are you doing here?” the beast asked him. It snuffled at his throat and he felt its teeth graze over his collarbone, bright points of pain that made him gasp into its hot mouth. “You’re human, all right. Are you a thief, human? Were you trying to steal my treasures?”

“He’s a hunter,” said the werewolf. “More likely, try to kill you.”

“Or take you away.” The beast looked up and smiled at the werewolf, then pulled the hunter over so that it could pin him down and lap at the werewolf’s slick thighs at the same time. “Take my honey away, my sweet wolf. Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

The werewolf didn’t answer because he was moaning loudly. And the hunter didn’t answer because the beast had stuffed his face into the bedding, so that his mouth was filled with fur.

He couldn’t move under the beast, trapped on his belly with his arms locked behind him, the beast’s furred legs lying over his own. He had to listen as the beast sucked and lapped at the werewolf’s cock, drawing shivering cry after cry from the werewolf. Had to lie there as the beast’s own cock began to swell and harden against him, pushing up between his thighs. Sticking fur to his legs as he sweated under the beast. It tickled and itched, and the hunter couldn’t help twisting to try and get away from it. But the more he moved, the more the beast’s cock pushed into him, and the more the fur stuck.

“There, there, honey wolf,” the beast said as the werewolf slumped, mewling, cock softening against the furs. And then he looked down at the hunter. “And you now. I suppose I should eat you, for trespassing.”

“Please don’t,” the hunter said desperately, spitting out the fur from his mouth. He’d forgotten all about treasures, about fame, about anything except for the hungry look in the beast’s eyes. “Please. I’m sure I don’t taste good enough.”

The beast sniffed deeply, then grinned. “Well, not yet, you don’t.”

And before the hunter could ask what he meant, the beast untied the straps from the werewolf and used them to tie him up. His arms to his sides, each hand to a thigh, and then it laid him down next to the werewolf, on his back.

“Humans don’t make slick,” the werewolf said. He’d recovered enough to rest on his still-bound hands, watching them. “You can lick all you want, but he won’t.”

“Oh, I’m not looking for honey, from him,” the beast said. It ran its hands down the hunter’s body, stroking the trembling muscles. “I’m looking for salt.”

And then the beast bent over and it wrapped its mouth around the hunter’s cock. Which was hard, so hard, hard ever since the hunter had seen the beast first lick the werewolf and the hunter cried out, pushed his hips up even as his face burned in embarrassment. The beast’s mouth was so—soft. That tongue still rasped, but just at the edges, just a flick now and then, to keep the hunter’s nerves dancing, and the rest was soft and hot, a perfect tight wrapping of heat.

It suckled the hunter like a baby at its mother’s teat, always the same rate even as the hunter, surrendering to his need, bucked his hips more and more frantically. When the hunter finally came, the beast still suckled. And then afterward, as the hunter’s cock began to twitch before it even had fully softened, as muscles relieved of tension began to tighten up again. The hunter gasped and struggled, but the beast gripped his thighs and sucked at him, and drew his aching cock into a second erection. 

And then a third. And then a fourth. The hunter was sobbing now, sobbing like the werewolf, his body trembling uncontrollably. The furs under him were matted with sweat, pressed flat down, but he thought he could feel the prick of each strand’s tip against his shivering back. “Stop,” he moaned. “Stop, stop, please.”

“Very well,” the beast said, surprising him. It rose up and then fondled his balls, fingers feeling like bars of burning metal, claws like scythes scraping away at his overworked nerves. “I think you’re dry anyway.”

The hunter whined, hearing the beast laugh at him. Firm hands turned him over, lying him on his side where the skin was least chafed, and then the beast left him for the werewolf, turning the whimpering wolf over so it could take out the plug and then taste leisurely at the werewolf’s honey.

“Mmm,” the beast said when it was done. “Sweet is good, but you need a little salt to cut it sometimes.”

“Please,” the hunter gasped. He was still shaking, aching all over. His wrung-out cock stung every time it brushed against his thighs, over the tender bruises that the beast’s hands had left, and his mouth was dry and cottony from panting. “Please. Water.”

“Of course.” The beast picked him up, petting him when he groaned and shook, and then it took him to a pool further into the cave, where it gave him water and washed his body. “Can’t have you drying up for good.”

When the hunter was clean, the beast rubbed him dry, using its own fur, and then carried him back to the bed and put him next to the werewolf, who was fast asleep, exhausted. The hunter couldn’t keep his eyes open either, dozing off even as the beast drew a fur over him, picked up his scattered belongings and stacked them with the rest of the beast’s treasures. And then the beast came back and curled up around them, keeping them warm, and the heat of its body was so good against the hunter’s sore muscles that the hunter found himself leaning into it.

The next morning, the hunter woke to the sound of the werewolf crying out, and the smell of roasting meat. He jerked, then groaned as the leather ties held him down, as his body began to wake in aching fits and starts.

“Eat,” the beast said, offering him a bit of deer, mouth still slicked from the werewolf.

The hunter ate, because he was hungry, and then coughed because his mouth and throat were dry again. Then whimpered as the beast drew him towards it, hands caressing down his body, cupping up possessively between his legs to massage at his balls. “I can’t, not again, not so soon. I’m just a human,” he pleaded. “I don’t want you to eat me to death.”

“Well, then drink,” the beast said, offering him a cup. 

It sat him in its lap and worked slowly at his balls, teasing them till they pulled up tight, heavy as ripe fruit, and fed him the cup’s contents a sip at a time. For every sip he took, the beast gave him a kiss. On his jaw, his cheek, his temple, his throat. His mouth. The beast’s mouth was still so soft, its teeth so sharp. Its tongue so coarse, and then so gentle. He started begging for the kisses, so that the beast had to turn his head back to the cup to make him finish it.

And then the hunter’s body began to fill with fire, with a burning twisting need that overpowered any exhaustion. He writhed and rubbed against the beast, panting, searching for something he didn’t understand, until the beast put the empty cup down and reached for his legs. It spread him, then _spread_ him, holding his thighs open with one hand while the other pressed deeply into him, pushing slick fingers up where he’d only grazed at, alone in his bed at night.

He’d thought it’d hurt, that was why he’d never tried it himself, but the beast’s fingers didn’t hurt him. They stretched him, invaded him, pried him open but it didn’t hurt. It was—it was what he needed, something pulling him open. It was like the beast was unraveling a knot in him he’d never known he had, and as his thighs shuddered apart the hunter moaned for it. He needed it, but he needed more.

The beast gave him more, laying him on his side again and then filling him up with its cock. He kicked a little, trying to get it deeper into him, and the beast laughed and licked raw stripes over the backs of his shoulders. Then pinned him, hand squeezing his balls again, working them even as he felt the pressure inside of them build and build and build, needing to come out.

“Wait,” the beast said. It pinched the bottom of his cock so he sobbed, and then it reached out and drew something onto his cock. Something that made muffled whimpers, sucking fervently at him. “There, now you can. You needed a little honey rubbed into you, well, he needs a little more salt in his diet.”

And the beast milked the hunter, tugging on his balls and pressing that thick, long cock into him, pushing him into the werewolf’s mouth. The hunter came and came and came, sobbing as his cock seemed to cycle endlessly between soft and hard, his body driven far beyond what he would have believed possible.

Finally, when even the beast’s drink couldn’t keep him going, the hunter went slack. Still on the beast’s cock, the werewolf’s twitching lips just grazing his cock head. He could feel the beast’s own come sticking between his buttocks and trailing down the insides of his thighs. His mouth was dry as a desert.

“Thirsty again?” the beast asked him, and the hunter just whimpered.

The beast gave him a drink, plain water, although the hunter would have taken another draught from that cup, or anything else the beast offered him.

“I didn’t come up here to steal anything,” the hunter said, when he was done. He shifted and he could feel the beast’s cock move in him, and he bit back a moan. “I wasn’t sure I’d kill anything either. I just—I just wanted to find something I couldn’t find back home.”

“And did you?” the beast asked. Teeth at the hunter’s nape, claws caging his balls, palm pressed firmly over his belly. 

When the hunter breathed out, all those spots prickled with heat, enough so that even as exhausted as he was, as emptied as he was, he felt a welling inside of him that rose till it filled every inch, pressed into every bone and fiber of his body. He whimpered softly and the beast licked at his neck, drew him a little further down onto its cock, pressing out the last of that sound from him.

“Yes,” said the man, leaning back against the beast. “Yes, I did.”

* * *

“I have this whole bunch of scrolls that I’m not sure I need to ask Scott to bring up now,” Stiles says, panting, two werewolves flopped under him. “Wow.”

Peter sniffs, mock-jealous, but he’s affectionate enough in the way he smiles at Chris. “And you said _I_ was being a distraction.”

“Because you were. You were making me set everything crooked,” Chris says, nuzzling at Stiles’ shoulder. He burrs deep in his chest, then hikes his leg a little further up Stiles’ back, head lolling as he sinks down onto Stiles’ cock. “But if we’re going to play that game, Hale, we might as well do it right.”

Peter sniffs again, then wriggles around so that he’s less under Stiles. He fidgets a lot when he’s not the one getting fucked and it can be a little annoying. Though it’s probably supposed to, with how he shivers and closes his eyes at the feel of Stiles’ teeth behind his ear.

“Scrolls?” he says, slipping his hand around to scratch the base of Stiles’ spine.

Stiles gives one of those pert buttocks a thwap with his tail, then catches Peter’s mouth for a short, but heated, kiss as Peter arches. “Um. Yeah. Well, if you’re going to comment on other people doing it, you should know what you’re talking about. And I wasn’t flying out with anybody long enough to feel like I could ask if they wanted to find out firsthand, you know, learn by doing. So…”

Werewolves are possessive, even betas, and any time Stiles mentions his prior experiences, his pair get a little quiet. And then they want kisses, really deep, long, moaning kisses, with nips along the side of their throat and preferably a cock up their ass, as if any of that past stuff even compares.

But hey, of all the things they want to be reassured about, this is one of the nicer, gentler ones, and Stiles is more than happy to take care of them on it. The bed’s already a mess anyway. It’s a good thing they’ve got a whole new set of furs and blankets for the summer, because the winter ones are looking a little ragged with all the washing.

“You should bring the scrolls anyway,” Chris says sleepily, after that round. He’s still on Stiles’ cock, although now he’s lying on his belly under Stiles, and is determinedly ignoring Peter’s miffed looks. Which is fair enough, seeing as Peter had it all of last night. “Might be interesting. I mean, Scott should. Unless he’ll be too embarrassed?”

“Oh, he’ll get them for me. He’ll just wrap them up in an extra bag, as if they’re going to stick to him or something, but he’ll get them,” Stiles mutters. He licks absently at Chris’ nape, making sure he’s sealed up all the fresh bites—sometimes they go so often that werewolf healing seems to not be able to keep up—and then nudges Chris with his chin. “So you like knowing about that sort of thing?”

“Chris likes knowing about a lot of unexpected subjects.” Peter’s given up on luring Chris out from under Stiles, and just curls up next to them, whining till Stiles slings an arm over his back. Then he settles. He looks up as Stiles pops out his wings, then reaches up and starts to sift his fingers rhythmically through the underside fluff, grinning when Stiles purrs.

“Shut up, Peter,” Chris says. He stretches his neck out under Stiles’ mouth, sighing. Then turns his head and rests his cheek on the furs. He’s too tired to be embarrassed but the corner of his mouth twitches anyway. “Well, it’s new. It’s not the kind of thing I had to learn about before, at least, not because it was fun, so it’ll be…I don’t mind trying it, anyway.”

Stiles nuzzles him till that darker shadow goes off his face, and he’s just purring. He’s starting to talk a little more about his life before. Mostly about the time between him leaving home and his father kidnapping him back, but once in a while he goes earlier. He still doesn’t like it but the way he heaves out the words, he seems to need to.

“Egg should hatch any day now, so it’s good timing,” Stiles says. “Scott always gets so broody with hatchlings, it’ll be good to have a reason to kick him out and make him take a break.”

“Good?” Peter asks after a moment.

“You can’t worry too much about them, that just stunts their growth,” Stiles says carefully, watching both werewolves. They were getting comfortable with the egg, even touching it sometimes, but as hatching day nears, they’ve been pulling back again. “It’s a good sign when they want to explore. Scott’s great at egg-warming, great when they’re a little older, but he just freaks out so much when they’re newly-hatched, he ends up a nervous wreck. So we’ll just make him take a little break and he’ll be all right. The winds should be regular again, so it’ll be a quick trip.”

Peter nods and lies back down. Chris is quiet, and then he makes a thoughtful sound, and then he’s quiet again.

“You need to take care of everybody, not just the hatchling,” Stiles adds after a second. “That might sound weird, but trust me, it’s better for the whole flock that way, even the baby. They can tell when you’re scared and then they get scared.”

“I know,” Chris says. He pauses, and then cranes around and lifts his head to just lip at Stiles’ jaw. “We know. We trust you.”

Then he puts his head back down. He’s still looking up at Stiles, calm and comfortable and…and yeah, trusting, him and Peter. Enough to tell Stiles things they’d never tell anybody else, good or bad.

“It’ll be all right,” he tells them, because he feels the same. “Don’t worry, we’ll all make it work.”

Peter smiles at him, then kisses the underside of his wrist. Huffing contentedly, Chris snuggles deeper into the furs, slack around Stiles’ cock. They know, they’re telling him, and he smiles back at them. Then curls down, folding his wings over the bed, and holds them close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the whole rough tongue thing. If you've ever been licked by a pet cat, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Some of the big cats have tongues rough enough that it actually helps them get through the skin of their prey.
> 
> Also, well, Peter and Chris are fantasizing, they're going to exaggerate the stuff they like about Stiles.
> 
> Pornographic materials have existed for forever. The ancient Romans and Greeks totally had pornographic scrolls, and whatever, this is fantasy, if Stiles wants to have a sekrit stash of erotic scrolls under the guise of doing interspecies research, he can have his scrolls. And dildos have existed for ages, too. The ancient Romans actually had a god whose symbol was an erect penis, and they plastered that thing everywhere. I mean, everywhere. It was a popular good-luck charm to hang from your toga or whatever, that kind of thing.


	14. Post-fic: Of Tails and Other Things

“Hey,” Stiles says, twisting around, and a gaggle of puzzled werewolves look back at him.

He frowns hard at them, because that’s the fifth time in as many minutes that somebody’s batted at his tail, and it’s starting to get annoying. Cora, the usual culprit, isn’t even there—she’s back in the half-built basement napping with Scott—and while Derek is, he’s well across the clearing, with both hands deep into the gut cavity of the half-dressed aurochs. And the adults don’t _usually_ indulge in that sort of thing.

Sphinx adults, on the other hand…Stiles does remember that Erica is around too, even if she’s a little far, and so he reluctantly sits back down to finish portioning out the torso. With his tail firmly tucked under his belly.

After a few seconds, the conversation starts up again, and people start nudging in to either side of him. Werewolves cut their meat a little differently from sphinxes, probably because they don’t have to worry about being able to fly away with it, and Erica’s really interested in that kind of thing so she and Laura and Chris are all pointing at muscle groups and tugging away tendons. Peter’s still working at getting off the hide, and he’s just gotten to the tricky bit at the head, so he’s trying a few different angles for pulling at the skin, and—

Stiles snaps his head up again. “ _Hey_.”

Everybody stops and looks at him again. Then Erica grins and flicks a little piece of gristle at him. She’s directly across from him so it couldn’t have been her. “Getting a little rowdy, huh?” she says. “Somebody eat its rut glands or something?”

“I’m pretty sure they rut in the fall like everybody else,” Stiles mutters, yanking in his too-stupid-to-stay-safely-covered tail. He glowers around and aside from Erica, they all look confused.

Well, except maybe—Stiles snorts to cover up his sudden suspicion, then digs at a piece of tenderloin that’s not coming cleanly off the bone. He pretends to be very intent on that, and while he’s scraping, he gradually lets his tail swing out again for counterbalance.

And then he whirls and pounces. Peter yelps and goes over onto his back, wide-eyed and flailing, a few of Stiles’ tail hairs still sticking to his fingers. He skids a little on the blood-slick grass as Stiles pins him, then goes limp, his chin immediately hiking back.

At that Stiles pauses, but though he still looks startled, Peter isn’t going white or getting hysterical or anything like that. He _does_ start whining, but it’s just his usual ‘oops!’ whine, not the frantic one he makes when he’s terrified. So Stiles goes back to glowering down at his mate. Gives Peter’s wrists a little extra squeeze when Peter moves, then bends down till they’re almost nose to nose.

“Seriously?” Stiles says. “My tail?”

Peter blinks a few times. “Scott does it?” he tries.

Behind them, Erica breaks out into peals of laughter. Chris does come around to the side, but once it’s clear they’re just playing, he sits back on his haunches and just enjoys the view.

“That’s because Scott is a jerk who just pretends to be super-polite,” Stiles says under his breath. He looks Peter in the eye a little longer, waiting for Peter to make that little yielding mewl, and then he starts to get up.

Except Peter’s eyes flick over, measuring grabbing chances even as he’s stretching his throat out, and Stiles snaps his tail straight out behind him and then sits on his mate. Peter grunts at the weight, then looks a little more sincerely apologetic as he tugs at his wrists. “I’m sorry, truly,” he says. “It just…kept coming closer, and I don’t know what came over me.”

“Which is why you made me move so you could reach better,” Derek mutters. 

Peter shoots him a dirty look and Derek shuffles behind a very smug Erica, who reaches back and pats him on the shoulder. Which is funny and all, but Stiles is still annoyed with Peter. Sure, no harm done, but it’s just—it’s annoying, and also it’s a little weird, Peter pulling kid tricks when they’re with the others, and Peter is doing that thing when he’s trying to distract Stiles from whatever is really going on in his head, looking all contrite with the adorably big eyes. Like that’s going to work on a master of that face.

Stiles considers his options, and then where the aurochs is, and then he gets off Peter. Reaches back, before Peter can get up, and grabs his mate by the back of the neck. He squeezes a little, then moves his hand up and down in a quick scruff; Peter blinks hard and then goes limp again, starting to look slightly nervous.

He perks up when Stiles pulls him over to press their sides together, but is still keeping his head low. “Stiles?”

“Come on,” Stiles says. He tugs up on Peter’s neck, so Peter hesitantly gets onto his hands and knees, and then moves them off to the edge of the clearing. “Chris, can you—”

“I’ll finish up,” Chris immediately says, swinging over to where Stiles had left off. He picks up a half-separated muscle, then looks back. “Did you—are you eating later, or…”

“Bring us our share when you’re all finished here?” Stiles says. He watches how Chris relaxes and he feels a little bad, since Chris is more tense than he was hoping, but Chris doesn’t seem too alarmed. “I’m gonna go spread out my wings, get them clean.”

Chris nods, already starting on the meat. Stiles waits a few more seconds, and then resumes moving away.

He lets go of Peter, but Peter’s following so closely anyway that his head is practically glued to Stiles’ flank. A couple paces in, Peter peels off and shifts, and then hurries back up in wolf form, quietly accompanying Stiles over to another clearing, one that’s higher up on the hill so it gets a lot more sunlight.

Stiles stops at the edge and quickly cleans off his hands and paws, and then works his way leisurely into the space, testing the springiness of the grass with his hands. When he finds a good, warm, soft spot, he plops down by it and then looks over.

Peter’s shifted human again, cleaning himself after Stiles’ example, but he hasn’t said a word. He looks really worried now, immediately coming over and trying to rub his whole side against Stiles. Who lets him, purring reassuringly, but as soon as Peter starts to purr back, Stiles pushes him off. Then nudges him till he’s lying on his belly. He cranes his head around, straining to keep eye contact, and only stops when Stiles climbs over him and then bends to lightly bite the side of his throat.

A faint tremble goes through Peter and he whines softly, then stretches hesitantly out in the grass, straightening his legs, nuzzling into the side of Stiles’ face as Stiles withdraws. 

“So what’s the matter?” Stiles says.

Peter looks confused again, and this time, it’s not an act. “Matter?”

“Well, you wanted my attention.” Stiles nips Peter again, harder, and Peter arches his neck into it before making an apologetic burr. “Okay, you have it, so what?”

“I was just—I was being annoying,” Peter says after a second. He breathes in sharply as Stiles lips at his neck, then lets his head slowly sink down onto the grass. “I don’t—I’m sor—Stiles. Stiles, I can’t—you’re being very—”

“What, distracting?” Stiles says, licking up and down that tendon running along Peter’s throat. He sucks at it some, then pushes his hands down on Peter’s shoulderblades to pin his mate, stopping that little hitch of Peter’s before he gets so much as a hair off the ground. “Which was what you were going for, wasn’t it?”

Peter whimpers, rubbing himself into the grass, his eyes half-closing and looking like they might shut all the way if Stiles doesn’t stop licking. The air starts to fill with the smell of crushed plants and fresh earth from where his hands are kneading into the ground. “ _Stiles_.”

“Seriously, Peter, I just got back,” Stiles says. Then pauses. Lifts his head and looks at Peter. “Wait. Is that it? I wasn’t gone that long, just a couple days. That’s not that bad, even for werewolves.”

“No, it’s not,” Peter mumbles. And he’s dismissive where he doesn’t have that little plaintive note leaking through, clearly trying to get Stiles back down on him.

Stiles gives him a few licks, but keeps them light and quick. “Hey, it was your idea. Fly up really quick and mark up some trees, see if that keeps the omegas from crossing the border so much. A lot faster than us all going up.”

“I know.” Peter’s sharp, and then he winces. When he speaks again, he’s much softer, but still sounds just as irritated himself. “Can’t really complain now, can I.”

“I don’t know, doesn’t seem to usually stop you,” Stiles says. He kisses Peter’s nape, then rubs his cheek over the spot.

Peter snorts, but his body’s taking an entirely different tack, slanting ass-up to press himself against Stiles from neck to buttocks, while he twists his head around and slides his cheek over Stiles’ jaw, throat, whatever he can reach. He’s purring lowly the whole time, and…and it’s all stuff he’d normally do, but it’s a little different. Like he smells aroused, but he’s not rubbing himself back into Stiles’ cock, not trying to get it in him as fast as possible. It’s more like he’s just concentrating on the rubbing itself, like he’s trying to…

Stiles rolls his eyes at himself, as things click, and then he pushes Peter down again. Holds him there by the upper arms, pressing firmly, then lets go there and slithers down to take Peter by the thighs. He sees Peter lifting his head and purrs back at his mate, then bites at the nearest buttock when Peter moves.

He doesn’t break the skin, but it’s a sharp enough bite that Peter immediately drops his head and then helps Stiles spread his legs. Stiles noses in between them and then rests for a second, face pressed up to the cleft of Peter’s ass, and Peter shivers violently but does his best to hold still. His whines go to whimpers, and then to soft, stretched-out begging noises.

“Personally, I think you still smell plenty like me,” Stiles says. He grins when Peter twitches, and then pulls Peter’s buttocks apart with his thumbs and takes a good, long lick at Peter’s hole. “But you could just _ask_ , if that’s what you were after.”

“Well, you said you were hungry, so we went hunting right away, and—and I didn’t want to—I don’t want to—you like traveling, I don’t want to be the one that—Stiles, Stiles, _Stiles_ ,” Peter moans, shaking, as Stiles thoroughly tongues his hole. “Oh, Stiles, please, please, missed you, I know but I could smell it fading and—”

Stiles forces Peter’s buttocks further apart, driving his head in between them so that he can push his tongue as far into Peter’s ass as he can. They have sex so much that it doesn’t take much now to get the slick going and he can already taste it a little. He’s really getting fond of the taste, too, and he works at that trace. Rolls his tongue around, working it in Peter’s hole till he gets the slick little by little to come out in sticky, gleaming smears down Peter’s thighs.

Peter babbles a few more words, something about trying to be patient, and then breaks back into his small, throaty, wordless pleas. His hips hitch and Stiles doesn’t mind that, but whenever Peter starts bucking back into his mouth, Stiles flexes his hands around Peter’s thighs. But Peter’s very good, and takes the cues and makes himself stop. Mewling urgently, rough ripping noises coming from under his hands, clumps of torn turf pulling up around those.

He sobs a little when Stiles finally pulls away from his ass. Stiles nuzzles his buttocks, sucking gently at their curves, and keeps them pinned while opening Peter up on his fingers. Leans over Peter while he’s at that, kissing and lapping his way up Peter’s spine, gradually sliding back over his mate till he’s got his weight fully on the werewolf.

By then Stiles is achingly hard himself, and he doesn’t even try to hold on till he can get his cock into Peter. He lets himself spill out over Peter’s inner thighs, Peter’s nape held between his teeth in a loose bite, but then he does grab himself, before his cock’s fully softened, and hurries to push it into Peter. Who’s alternating between mewling and purring, and the purring now is rough, more than a little desperate, trying to get Stiles to move.

Stiles doesn’t. He gets himself firmly seated in Peter, and then he sprawls out on top of his mate. Lazes that way, licking at the back of Peter’s neck, and then rises just enough to flick out his wings. Then he goes down again, and when Peter squirms, he runs his hands down Peter’s arms, then closes them around Peter’s wrists, using that grip and his weight to hold Peter still.

“This is it, right?” he murmurs. He grins, hearing Peter’s whimper, and then laps at Peter’s nape again. “Werewolves, honestly. Come home, got to remember to re-mark everything here, too.”

Peter whines softly, clenching around Stiles’ cock. He shudders sharply, then takes a shaky breath. Digs his chin into the grass to steady himself. “Ye—yes. But—but—”

“But you want it, and it’s not like it’s a big deal for me, and I’m okay with doing werewolf stuff when it makes everybody happy,” Stiles says, in between purrs. “Besides, I like you smelling like me. Sphinxes are like that too.”

Peter shudders again, not so roughly, and then goes slack. He’s still moving around some, but he’s getting into that contented daze he has whenever Stiles is matching up with his instincts, all soft and submissive and deeply satisfied, even when he’s still waiting to come. “Stiles,” he says, breathless, groaning, his eyes closed and his throat bared. “Please. Can I—”

“No, not yet,” Stiles says, and even as Peter whimpers, his scent is spiking high with lust. “You _were_ annoying. After we eat.”

He can hear Chris coming. Chris is making a lot of noise on purpose, but even if he wasn’t, Stiles can hear Chris’ heartbeat thrumming fast and hard, almost as bad as Peter’s whenever Stiles handles him. It’s not…Stiles doesn’t really think of it as punishment, and he doesn’t think his mates do, either. Not with how Peter practically goes looking for it, like if Stiles doesn’t roll him off his feet once in a while, it means Stiles has forgotten about him. Or how much Peter enjoys it once he gets it. Sometimes he doesn’t want to leave their cave for the whole day after. Just curls up there, showing off how exhausted he is, and nuzzles and kisses Stiles whenever he can.

Stiles laughs to himself under his breath, thinking that yeah, he should’ve picked up on it a little earlier, and then he looks up as Chris steps into the clearing.

“Everything all right?” Chris asks. He’s a little flushed, and his cock’s half-risen behind the load of meat he’s carrying, but he’s trying to look and sound calm. He doesn’t really go chasing Stiles’ attention, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it, or like it when he and Peter get it.

Peter mewls quietly, wiggling under Stiles. Chris twitches, then nearly trips himself watching Stiles as Stiles cranes down and gives Peter a long, showy lick up the side of his neck. Then gives up completely and just comes over, purring, ducking his head and offering his own throat, when Stiles turns and croons at him.

Stiles takes one hand off Peter, just to pull Chris in for a kiss, and Peter immediately starts humping up. So he has to put the hand back, and then he moves it so he’s holding Peter by the nape with one hand, and both of Peter’s wrists with the other, keeping them tucked under Peter’s chest. Peter shivers in Stiles’ grip but doesn’t struggle; instead he goes back to the begging noises, tilting his head back against Stiles’ chest.

Chris snorts a few times, while nuzzling along Stiles’ jaw, then pushes in for that missed kiss. He lets Stiles take the lead on that, and when Stiles finally eases back, he’s panting almost as much as Peter is. “You sure you don’t want me to come back later?” he says. “You look like you have your hands full.”

“It’s not kind to gloat, Chris,” Peter mumbles.

“Quiet, you,” Stiles says, squeezing Peter’s neck.

Peter lets out a long, placating purr, going limp, and Stiles can’t help an answering rumble. But he stretches over to Chris, nipping lightly down the offered length of Chris’ neck as his other mate makes no attempt to leave. Actually, Chris is shifting his weight back onto his knees and tucking his arms under himself, definitely settling in.

“Well, yeah, I guess I could use a little help,” Stiles says. He got Chris a little rougher than planned in one spot, because Chris twitched just as he bit down, and he licks at the tiny red dots while Chris stifles a whimper. “And I’m still hungry. I barely ate while I was up there, was just trying to get it done and come back. Want to help me out here?”

Chris nods shakily, then follows that up with a long, low groan as he fumbles at the meat on the ground, trying to cut it up without pulling his neck away from Stiles’ mouth. “Yeah. Yeah, sorry, we should’ve had something ready for you, it’s just—”

Stiles kisses him before he can get too idiotic, and Chris drops the meat and just moans into Stiles’ mouth. He’s swaying, like he might just drop and roll over, and Stiles ends up having to break off and bite his jaw so he comes back a little to himself.

And takes a good look at Chris while he’s at it. Chris blinks hard, then goes back to pulling off pieces of meat, a little clumsy because he’s going too fast. He slows when Stiles laps at his jaw, then takes a deep breath. Lifts a chunk of meat, but when he offers it to Stiles, Stiles jerks his chin at Chris.

“You first,” Stiles says. When Chris starts to frown, because he’s like that, even if he’s probably been just eating whatever Laura or Scott managed to stuff at him while Stiles was gone, Stiles cranes over and rubs his cheek up Chris’ jawline and then down his throat, sneaking in a couple kisses behind Chris’ ear as he whines. “You and him first, and if you’re good about it, I’ll give you something good.”

Chris hitches, then presses his face hard into Stiles’ head, and that pretty much takes care of his protests. He eats the chunk of meat, and Stiles gives him a nice, deep kiss for it. Then he tears off another piece, and after a look at Stiles, offers it to Peter. 

Peter’s a little past protests at this point, but he still ignores the meat in favor of trying to lick Stiles till Stiles nips his neck. Then he reluctantly snaps up the morsel; Stiles sucks at his throat, right over the bitten spot, and Peter struggles to swallow in between his moans, his body clamping enthusiastically down onto Stiles’ cock.

Stiles gets the third piece, and rewards himself with a short fuck into Peter, with a cock that’s starting to harden again, and a lingering suck at Chris’ bottom lip. Both werewolves whimper and then nose towards the meat, trying to hurry him up into the next round.

They get through maybe a fist-sized pile of meat that way before Stiles has to stop. Peter’s trembling uncontrollably by then, almost spasming around Stiles’ fully-hard cock, and Chris is fumbling with the meat so much that Stiles is afraid he’ll slice himself up on his own claws. Anyway, Stiles isn’t exactly hungry for _that_ now.

So he bats Chris’ hand away with his head, then shifts his weight back, pulling Peter with him. Peter fights a little, twisting his wrists in Stiles’ grip, then realizes what it means and lets out a ragged cry, jerking against the grass. He makes the same noise as Stiles fucks into him, biting his nape, and a shudder goes through him so hard that he jerks his neck out of Stiles’ hand, slapping his shoulders and head down into the ground so he can slam his hips back into Stiles. And then he comes hard, grinding his face so forcefully into the grass that Stiles slows to check that he isn’t suffocating himself.

But once Stiles is sure about that, he just keeps on fucking Peter. He goes with long, slow strokes, taking his time about it, giving Peter a chance to catch his breath and start stirring again. Peter twitches once or twice, then shivers, weakly rolling his hips back, trying to meet Stiles’ strokes even as he’s whimpering from his own climax. He loves that, loves getting fucked after he’s come himself, when he’s too blown to do anything but just feel it. When Stiles comes, Peter cries out so roughly that Stiles almost thinks the man’s come with him.

But Peter’s cock is soft, when Stiles worms a hand under him. Soft and sticky, and Peter is squirming, oversensitive and mewling from it. Stiles gives his cock a light squeeze, catching Peter’s nape with his mouth on the upjerk, and then settles back on top of his mate. Looks at Chris. “Well, c’mere already. I’m still hungry. Man, I’m always hungry when I’m away from you two, and I know you are, even when you’re trying to be good about it.”

Chris just stares for a few seconds. He’s fully hard, his hands gripping a chunk of meat so hard that it’s pulping it, and his pupils are blown. Then he jerks his head down. He works his mouth like he’s trying to speak, and then instead just crawls over on his elbows to lick at Stiles’ jaw. It’s an invitation, soft but focused, and when Stiles turns into it, he shivers and then keeps licking, much more firmly.

He drags what’s left of the meat over with him, and even if it’s a little smashed, Stiles wants it. Stiles starts scraping and pinching pieces out of Chris’ hand, and as he chews he gets blood smeared on his face, which Chris dutifully licks up. Follows the dribbles across Stiles’ jaw, down his chin and then back up his cheeks, and then he’s so intent on it that he starts licking it straight from Stiles’ mouth, sometimes when Stiles hasn’t even gotten the meat all the way into his mouth.

Stiles lifts his hand and he’s going to move Chris back, except Chris spots him first. Spots the blood on his fingers, really—Chris grabs at his hand, then sucks and licks and laps furiously, in the grips of a sudden frenzy now. And Chris is making noises while he does that, wet, deep moans, and his hips are jerking up into nothing, trying to fuck the plain air, he’s so distracted.

He moves to Stiles’ other hand, when Stiles raises that, and then grunts as Stiles grabs the back of his neck. Then lets out a muffled whine around the fingers in his mouth, arching his head back even as he twists his knees away from Peter’s face, letting Stiles push him down.

Peter complains a little, when Stiles slides out of him, but just stays in a heap where he is, his eyes still glazed over. He and Chris share a couple sloppy kisses when Chris gets near enough, but as Stiles probes in between Chris’ legs, Chris angles away and Peter doesn’t bother chasing, just watches with a look of dazed satiation.

The spit on Stiles’ fingers doesn’t last very long, so he has to keep swapping hands, pulling them from Chris’ mouth to Chris’ hole. At first he tries to get back to feeding Chris, too, getting Chris to take the meat while cleaning off his hands, but Chris is too quick. Starts sucking his fingers before he can get the meat, and finally Stiles gives up on that. He’s got Chris on two fingers, anyway, and the slick’s coming out enough that Stiles wants to get his mate on his cock already.

Stiles pulls his fingers out and paws at Chris’ hips, trying to pull the werewolf straight back against him, but somehow Chris gets flopped around, and ends up on his back, Stiles pressing down on Chris’ shins as he slides his cock in. Chris humps up, groaning, and then drops with his arms flung out to either side of him, claws shoved deep into the grass. He looks up at Stiles, gasping, and he’s got blood smeared all over himself. Not from eating, just from cleaning Stiles off, and Stiles can’t help it, he bends over and starts lapping that all up.

Chris whines and cants his head this way and that, chasing Stiles’ mouth. Knocking their heads together till Stiles has to bite his throat, just to get him to hold still, keep him from banging them up. Shivering, Chris freezes, and then he twists his head all the way over, silently asking for Stiles to get at that spot behind his ear. It’s awkward when they’re facing each other, but Stiles noses in and the small, pleading noise Chris makes is more than worth it.

Stiles keeps on licking as he fucks Chris, working down from the ear along Chris’ neck, across the collarbone, and then he’s nearly to the breast when Chris seizes up and comes. It’s not heat, and even if sphinxes tend to be quick off the mark, these two are always so eager and willing that Stiles needs longer for this round. So he licks and licks, laving his way across Chris’ chest. And gets his hand up, gets it over Chris’ cock, just sweeps up its length and takes all the come with him, and smears that across Chris’ belly as he rocks more and more sharply into his mate.

He can tell Chris smells that because Chris is sniffing and then moaning, rougher and rougher, and then Chris arches and pushes down with his hips and something about how he’s wrapped around Stiles’ cock is just enough, just perfect.

“Missed you too,” Stiles pants, a few minutes later, still slumped over a feebly-purring Chris. “Even when it’s summer, it sucks sleeping by yourself. Least you two had each other.”

Peter makes a soft, soothing noise, and then attempts to shuffle over. He loses strength halfway there, and has to stop and catch his breath. In the meantime, Chris’ purr rises in volume, then stops as Chris presses his face into Stiles’ throat.

“Still felt too big,” Chris mutters. “Too much space. I kept waking up and counting heartbeats, and…but—but it’s not that we can’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, put up with it.” Stiles nuzzles him back, then nibbles at his throat till he starts purring again. “So if you can do that, I guess I can put up with a little tail-chasing when I’m back.”

“Must be a born thing, because I still don’t get that,” Chris snorts. Then focuses on something on the underside of Stiles’ jaw. He lifts his head, panting a little, and then tilts it and licks off the speck of blood. And then finds another one he missed.

Stiles returns the favor, getting at a smear of blood that’s tucked up along Chris’ hairline, near the temple, and Chris trembles at the touch, then stifles a moan. He’s twisting a little, not ready yet, but at the same time he’s tipping his head up into Stiles’ mouth. And then he pulls back, even as Stiles raises his head. He looks embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “Keep forgetting.”

“Oh, whatever, so sphinxes don’t get off on grooming.” Stiles licks at Chris again, then grins as Chris moans again. “So you do, and I like it when you get worked up.”

Chris looks even more embarrassed, and then he twitches as Stiles laps off some blood from his hair. His knees jerk and bump into the underside of Stiles’ wings and oh, man, Stiles had those out the whole time.

Stiles gets up and takes a look around. Well, no, he must have pulled them in at least once, because the clearing’s definitely messed up, but it doesn’t look like somebody was beating a mini vortex in the middle of it. And then he winces and looks back down at Chris, who’s still whimpering a little from losing Stiles’ cock. “Oops, sorry.”

He nuzzles at Chris’ throat at the same time and Chris stretches out under him, purring. Then twists sharply as Stiles’ belly grazes his softened cock again. Stiles presses himself down for a second, trapping Chris’ cock between them, and Chris stills, moaning. Then he lifts himself. Sucks lightly at the side of Chris’ throat, then climbs off his mate.

Chris looks curiously over and then closes his eyes as Stiles twists back to kiss him. “Hmm?”

“They’re not expecting us back any time soon, are they?” Stiles asks.

“No. Erica said if you were going to mess with your wings, they might as well haul the rest back and let us catch up when you’re done,” Chris says. He sounds in no hurry to do that.

“Well, you know, I guess it’d be better if we weren’t _totally_ lying about that,” Stiles says. When Chris frowns at him, he grins and then kisses his mate again. “If you want. Or I can just do them later.”

Then he moves over, back to where Peter’s still sprawled out. He nudges around a few of Peter’s limbs so Peter’s on a cleaner patch of grass—Peter mewls and hitches a couple times, but otherwise looks very content to be positioned however Stiles wants—and then straddles him. Checks Peter’s hole with two fingers, purring as Peter whimpers and shivers, and then carefully slides his cock back into Peter. Settles himself like that on top of the werewolf, spreading his wings out in the sun.

Chris rolled over to watch, but doesn’t get up till Stiles puts his head down on Peter’s nape. He still looks a little chagrined about it all, but it’s not like he looks too reluctant to come over, dragging his hands through the grass to clean them off, and then to start picking through Stiles’ feathers. Peter doesn’t mind that either, but Chris really seems to enjoy it. Not just that he can help Stiles out that way, but also how it feels to him, just something about running his hands through Stiles’ feathers; they usually end a session with Stiles pushing him over for a quick fuck, with the way he ends up smelling. 

“Save some of that,” Stiles says as Chris’ fingers start prodding his oil glands, milking them out. He yawns—it’s warm, and he’s pretty tired at this point—and then absently laps at Peter’s neck. “Wanna use it and oil you up too, fuck you while the sun’s still out. That’ll definitely get you smelling like me again.”

A little eager noise slips from Chris before he can help it. Then he flushes, but he’s careful not to tug the feathers too hard. Stiles grins at him and Chris makes a face. Then hitches as Stiles lets his tail swing around so its tip flicks just across Chris’ buttock. 

Chris stops preening the feathers and looks hard at Stiles, but Stiles just lazes out, letting the breeze flutter his primaries. After a second, Chris snorts under his breath and goes back Stiles’ wings. He shifts closer to Stiles, leaning against Stiles’ side so Stiles pushes deeper into a steadily-purring Peter, and he’s starting to relax when Stiles uses his tail to thwap the buttock this time. 

He yelps, yanking his hands out of Stiles’ feathers, and then glowers weakly at Stiles. “I thought you didn’t want people grabbing at that,” he mutters.

“I don’t,” Stiles says, and then tickles his tail tip up the back of Chris’ thigh. He smiles sunnily at his mate, who’s biting his lip and looking very much like he might just give up on the preening and try and shove his way under Stiles, next to Peter. “But hey, you want to try and see what happens, be my guest.”

Peter snickers, then hastily turns that into a purr when Stiles mouths his nape. He twists a little, getting his arms comfortable, and then sighs happily as Stiles nuzzles him. Chris rolls his eyes, and carefully slides his hands back into Stiles’ feathers. He’s still keeping one eye on Stiles’ tail.

“Maybe later,” Chris says, half-wary, half-amused. Smelling a little excited about it.

Stiles rests his grin on Peter’s back. “Yeah, well, I’m back now,” he murmurs. “No rush.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have watched a nature special about cross-species friendships, including several feline-canid ones, and how pairs with distinctly different body language can develop their own way of signaling playtime. And I was thinking about how Chris and Peter initially misread Stiles and Scott's relationship in part because they didn't understand what sphinx play looks like, but they'd obviously pick that sort of thing up later on.
> 
> Also, the idea of werewolves and sphinxes chasing each other's tails just amuses me to no end.


End file.
